The Murder of Danny Williams
by illman
Summary: Desperate to solve a quadruple murder, Danny makes the ultimate sacrifice. However, things may not be as they appear and the fallout strains more than one relationship. Not a death fic.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Murder of Danny Williams

Author: hexicode aka illman

Fandom/pairing (if appropriate): Hawaii 5-0 (2010), no pairing

Summary: Desperate to solve a quadruple murder, Danny makes the ultimate sacrifice. However, things may not be as they appear and the fallout strains more than one relationship. Not a death fic.

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: non-graphic violence, mentions of violence against children. General spoilers and some detailed ones for the first couple of episodes of the show.

Disclaimers: The characters and settings aren't mine. No profit is being made, this is for entertainment only.

A/N: This story is complete and I hope to be able to update once a day. Beta-read by the lovely DianeM. All remaining mistakes are purely my fault.

oOo

"Either you take Kono as your back-up or you're staying here."

Even though the door to Steve's office was closed, Kono had no difficulty in hearing what was being said.

"That's it?" Danny spluttered in reply, hands flying. "You just lay down the law and that's it? You tell us to jump and we're supposed to ask how high?"

"That about sums it up. I am your boss, Danny, and I'm telling you that you aren't going there alone."

"Strange and there I thought we were partners! May I remind you that I actually know what I'm doing? I have investigated homicides before, you know, and unlike someone I know, I am able to question a suspect without dangling him off a roof or holding a gun to his head. If the governor didn't have your back at every turn, you wouldn't stand a chance of cracking a case!" Danny shouted heatedly.

"Then maybe you should have just stayed with HPD!"

Kono winced at the angry exchange. It wasn't their first fight over this case, yet by far the most vitriolic. She was used to her bosses bickering, but until H50 had caught this quadruple homicide, it had never turned vicious between them.

"Am I having memory trouble or wasn't it you who drafted me into your little Rambo task force without so much as asking me?" Danny's sarcastic voice was audible from the office.

"They still at it?" Chin asked, as he walked up to Kono. Chin had always had talent for keeping out of sight when trouble was brewing.

"Worse than ever," Kono replied. "Any luck?" she asked, referring to the lead Chin had been pursuing.

"Nope. HPD found a severed hand all right, but it definitely didn't come from any of our victims. The ME thinks that it belongs to a woman in her twenties to early thirties."

Kono nodded. The four dead bodies which had been found in a vacant flat two weeks ago had all been missing both hands, but the ME had estimated that even the oldest victim had been only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time of her death. As the bodies had not only been missing their hands, but also their teeth, all the usual means of identification were unavailable and the team had been unable to give a name to any of them.

The sound of a door tore Kono from her thoughts. She looked up and saw Steve striding out of his office, where Danny still stood.

"Kono," Steve turned to her in passing. "You're with Danny. I have a meeting with Governor Jameson and I want you to keep an eye on him in the meantime."

Before Kono could reply, Steve was gone.

"I can't say I envy you, cuz," Chin commented in a low voice and suddenly became very interested in a stack of files when Danny came out of Steve's office. He looked more pissed than Kono had ever seen him. Without a word, he grabbed the car keys from his desk and made for the door.

Kono suppressed a sigh and followed him, catching up with him in the corridor.

"Listen. I heard what Steve said, but I don't need a babysitter. I can handle myself." He sounded more weary than angry. Kono could understand the sentiment. The last three weeks had been trying for all of them.

"No can do," Kono answered with an apologetic shake of her head. "I'm toast if I let you go off alone."

Danny didn't reply. Shrugging to herself, Kono followed him towards the parking garage.

oOo

Neither of them spoke during the drive. Danny seemed intent on ignoring her, but hadn't made any further attempts to prevent her from accompanying him.

Without saying a word, Danny started to unbuckle his seatbelt. Kono glanced out of the window, surprised to see that they were at least two blocks from the marina. She opened her mouth to ask, when Danny spoke.

"It's better if you stay out of sight." Danny opened the door and started to get out without further comment.

"Wait a minute," Kono protested. "Are you sure you should be going in there alone?"

"Yes, I am sure." Danny started to walk away.

"But..." Kono climbed out of the car. She wasn't about to give up that easily. Steve had told her to stick with Danny and she was determined to do just that. If Danny got into trouble and she wasn't there to back him up, Steve would never forgive her and neither would she forgive herself.

Danny turned back to face Kono. "Listen. I know Steve told you to babysit me, but it isn't necessary."

Kono wanted to protest that this wasn't at all what this was about, that she would have accompanied him anyway, but the truth must have shown on her face, for Danny nodded in resignation.

"Well, the truth is I can handle myself, no matter what McGarrett thinks. I know this guy. He's paranoid, but harmless. Me going there alone is the best chance we have of getting him to tell us something useful. And I don't know about you, but I want to break this case."

Not waiting for an answer, Danny turned back around and left her standing next to the car.

Kono heaved a sigh, part resignation, part frustration and climbed back into the car. She didn't like it, but Danny had a point. Still, she didn't like this side of Danny – far too quiet, with tension fairly radiating off him, just waiting to explode. She idly wondered when the last time he'd slept. She wondered when she'd last slept, when any of them had last slept.

oOo

Danny already regretted his words to Kono by the time he rounded the corner at the end of the block. She had been working as hard as the rest of them; he really shouldn't have questioned her resolve to catch those SOBs. It was just that kind of case where they couldn't seem to catch a break, no matter how hard they worked. Danny stifled a yawn. He really needed to get some sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the dead bodies of those girls before his mind's eye. Four girls, approximately the same age as his own daughter. Girls who, according to the grizzly record borne by their bodies had lived through horrors no child should ever be exposed to, before being having their throats slit and their mutilated dead bodies dumped like last week's trash in a vacant apartment in a run-down tenement. Public outrage had been huge and now, after two weeks without so much as an ID on the dead girls, the whole case was turning into a PR disaster. The governor was breathing fire down Steve's neck as a result and had called him into an emergency meeting this afternoon.

Danny rounded another bend and the marina came into view. Spotting his informant's houseboat, he quickened his stride. The guy better be home, Danny thought. He would hate to have come all this way on a wild goose chase.

Between determination, overwork and lack of sleep, Danny never noticed how the gaze of two men among the usual crowd of tourists lingered on him just a little too long, tracking his path across the marina towards the small, ill-maintained boat moored near the far end.

oOo

Danny threw a cursory glance around the deck, which was littered with beer bottles and a plethora of other items, before heading down a small set of steps to the main cabin, gun ready just in case. He didn't trust Elroy in the least. The guy was a miserable junkie, even if he had given him the odd good tip before. However, all those cases had been drug related and this was...well, to tell truth, they had no idea what this was. Four dead girls, no ID, no nothing. It could be drugs. Hell it could be anything for all the oh-so-elite H50 task force knew. So when Elroy had left him a message on his phone, telling him that he had something to trade - because Elroy never gave anything up for free - Danny had had no choice but to follow up on the lead.

He knocked on the wooden cabin door.

"Elroy! Open up!" he shouted. No sound came from inside. Danny called out more, then tried to door handle. To his surprise, the door was unlocked. Danny pushed his way inside the dim cabin.

"El-" he started to call out once more, but before he could finish, he tripped over an object on the floor, causing him to tumble head-along into the near-darkness.

Danny painfully managed to break his fall with his knees and elbows, while at the same time, somewhere above him, a shriek pierced the air followed by a violent crash. Danny sprang back to his feet, gun in hand. The open door admitted enough light for him to be able to make out the outline of a figure brandishing a baseball bat staggering towards him.

"Elroy, that you?" Danny asked, slightly winded.

"Detective Williams?" the familiar voice of the junkie slurred and suddenly, the light in the cabin, provided by a lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling, came on. Danny blinked, then, without preamble holstered his gun, walked over to Elroy and took the bat from him, throwing the potential weapon behind the couch in the corner.

"How nice of you to pay me a visit," Elroy rambled. It was obvious that he was completely strung out on God-knew-what.

"What do you have for me?" Danny wasn't in the mood for games.

"Didn't know you were into the good stuff...anyhow, I don't share," Elroy declared sullenly.

Danny had had enough. He walked over to Elroy, grabbed the man's skinny shoulders and pushed hum hard against the wall.

"Four girls are dead. You left a message on my phone saying you knew something. You better start talking right now, or I'm going start dialing. I know some folks in narcotics who would be real interested in your business." Although it would be an easy thing to get Elroy arrested for possession with intent, the threats were mainly intended to play on Elroy's paranoid tendencies, which were most pronounced when he was strung out.

Elroy, spineless weasel that he was, caved immediately.

"All right, all right. There's this guy, we're business partners, you understand." Danny waved a hand to hurry Elroy up. He wasn't interested in some pretty dope deals right now, he wanted to get to the part where four little girls had ended up dead.

"A few weeks ago, he couldn't pay and in my line of work, I really can't give credit, but he being a good customer and all, offered me a business opportunity. Said he had dirt on some guy who was running some big trafficking thing on the island. He said if we could shake this guy down, it would pay his debt and then some!"

"Did he show you any proof?"

"Huh?" Elroy gave Danny a puzzled look.

"Did your esteemed business partner actually show you any proof of this alleged trafficking business or were you dumb enough to take him at his word?" Danny demanded in exasperation.

"You think I'm stupid? Of course, he showed me proof." Elroy dove under the couch to retrieve a strongbox. He held it out to Danny. "There's all the proof you'll need."

Danny eyed the look of the battered box and held out a hand.

"First, I'll need some assurances..."

He'd known it. Elroy always had his hand out. It would have been a minor miracle if this time had been different.

"Elroy. If whatever you got in there is for real and we actually nail those guys based on what you are giving me, you've got your assurances."

"I need protection, too."

"You got that." Danny didn't care if it was a lie. All he could see in front of his mind's eye were those dead girls. They were the ones who had needed someone to protect them, and who had been there for them? "Now, give me the key to this box and tell me the rest of the story." Truth be told, Danny didn't care much about the story at this point. In Elroy's present condition, he doubted very much that he would get anything of use from him.

Elroy rummaged through his pockets and eventually produced a small key, which he handed to Danny. Danny swiftly unlocked the box, ignoring Elroy who was nervously pacing the cluttered cabin, lost in some paranoid ramblings. Lifting the lid, Danny visually examined the contents. There was a small flash drive, two manilla envelopes and an old fashioned VHS tape with the name J.P. Deakon scrawled on the label. He pocketed the flash drive, just in case and then picked up the larger of the two envelopes.

Suddenly, just as he was flipping through the stack of what were evidently surveillance photos, Elroy grabbed him by the arm with surprising strength for a man so thin and started to drag him towards the door.

"Hey! What the hell!" Taken completely by surprise, Danny offered more vocal than physical resistance at first, that was until Elroy made a lightning-quick move and suddenly held Danny's gun aimed unsteadily at the detective.

Crap. He'd known Elroy was volatile and untrustworthy, but he hadn't thought the man to be actually dangerous. He really should have taken the hint when Elroy had nearly bashed his head in with that baseball bat earlier.

"Elroy, just put the gun down. Whatever this is, we can talk about it." Danny tried his calmest, most reasonable tone, even though deep down he felt anything but. Right now would be a very good time for the cavalry to arrive, even if he'd told the said cavalry or rather Kono, in this case, in no uncertain terms that they were neither wanted nor needed.

"Did anyone see you come here?" Elroy asked and, without waiting for an answer, he continued. "They are watching me. I can't be seen talking to the cops, especially not to you, not when you're on that special task force now." Elroy's grip on the gun was unsteady and in a physical confrontation, Danny would probably emerge the winner. For a second, he considered rushing the man, trying to overpower him. If it had been a knife that Elroy had been holding, it would have been a different story, but with a gun, the risk was too great that Danny would be seriously injured. No, he'd have to try and talk his way out of this one.

"No one was watching me, Elroy. I'm sure of it. I'm trained to notice those things, you know that," Danny fumbled, for once in his life at a loss for words. "And you are going to let me go now."

"Can't let you go. They're going to know you're a cop."

"How are they going to know?" What was it that he learned? Engage them in a dialogue, keep them talking, something like that? Danny couldn't remember.

"You have a badge," Elroy pointed out with all the logic of a three year old.

"Okay, I'm going to leave it here, so no one is going to notice anything. I'm just an ordinary guy visiting an old friend on his boat."

"Leave the tie, too."

What was it with the people on this island and his ties? Danny didn't know, but obeyed, taking off his tie and removing his badge.

Elroy nodded, seeming satisfied, at least for the moment. "Put the envelope on the table, then you can go."

Danny did as asked, secure in the knowledge that he at least had the flash drive.

Without lowering the gun, Elroy backed away from the door far enough to allow Danny to leave the cabin.

"Hurry up!" Elroy ordered, waving the gun wildly. Danny didn't need to be told twice. In rapid strides, he crossed the doorway and ascended the steps to the deck.

"If anyone asks, you were never here!" Danny heard Elroy yell from inside just as he stepped out onto the deck. Danny shook his head, a giddy laugh threatening to escape now that he was back topside and breathing fresh air. The laugh, however, remained stuck in his throat when his gaze fell on a bundle of what at first glance had seemed like nothing more than a pile of dirty old rags lying among the general mess of the deck. But the amidst the rags was clearly visible a digital clock, the red digits of which were counting down, currently two seconds from zero. Without time to make a conscious decision, Danny hurtled himself off the side of the boat facing the open ocean.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

oOo

Steve breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally able to step outside once more. It was that part of it – the meetings, the paperwork, the bureaucracy and the politics that he liked least about his new job. So far the governor had done her best to keep them away from him, obviously knowing that his strengths and those of his team lay elsewhere. This time, however, she had put her foot down. They had till the end of the day to come up with a lead in the case of the four murdered girls or they were to move on. Steve hadn't liked her decision, but he understood it. Crime on the island hadn't stopped and after they had spent two weeks on this case without getting anywhere, he doubted more time would help.

All that was left to do now was break the news to his team. Steve decided to get it over with right now and pulled out his mobile phone. He'd turned it off for the duration of his meeting and now found he'd received no less than four messages from Kono. Before he had a chance to listen to the first one, his phone started ringing again. They had talked to a number of more or less shady informants during their investigation, but whoever was behind the murders was doing a good job of keeping it quiet.

It was Kono on the other end of the line, sounding breathless. "Finally, boss. I thought we'd never reach you."

"You and Danny got a lead?" Steve asked, somewhat incredulous. He had been sure that Danny, desperate to crack the case, was barking up the wrong tree.

"No, it's about Danny. That's why I was trying to call you all afternoon. There was an explosion at the marina..."

"Are you and Danny okay?" Steve interrupted, a very bad feeling suddenly spreading through the pit of his stomach.

"I'm okay, boss, but I can't find Danny anywhere. His cell goes straight to voice mail and I haven't seen him since the explosion."

Steve started walking towards his car. "Start from the beginning. I'm going to meet you at the marina."

oOo

Steve made it to the marina in record time. The story Kono had told him was a grim one, leaving little room for doubt, or so it seemed, but he was unwilling to give up hope until he'd had a chance to examine the situation up close and talk to the witnesses himself if need be.

Pulling his car up as close to the scene of the explosion as possible, Steve climbed out of the car and was immediately accosted by Kono and Chin.

The air over the marina was heavy with smoke which was still rising from what remained of several boats near the far end. Was that where the boat of Danny's informant had been moored? Steve realized he had no idea.

"Anything new?" Steve asked. For the last ten minutes of the drive, he had been on the phone with Governor Jameson, relaying what little information he had, so there was a chance that there had been a new development since, although the somber faces of the two cousins already precluded any good news.

"Not much," Chin replied. "Until the flames are all put out, the Coast Guard won't go anywhere near it. I spoke to the fire chief and he estimates that it will be another forty-five minutes at the very least before they'll release the scene. He did tentatively confirm that the source of the fire was the boat at the far left, belonging to one Elroy Dryden. He's a three-time loser and a junkie, but HPD confirmed that they have been working him as a CI, including in two cases that Danny worked."

"What about witnesses?" Steve asked. "Did anyone see Danny actually get on board the boat?"

"Yes, that was confirmed by three witnesses who were working on restoring a boat moored nearby. They are positive it was him. They didn't see him leave. That's all I've gotten from them so far. Two of them were pretty banged up in the explosion and they were taken straight to hospital before I could get anything else and the third one went with them. I got their names, though."

"Any other witnesses?"

"Plenty of people saw or heard the explosion, but these three were the only ones who I could find you actually saw Danny get on the boat _and_ witnessed the explosion."

"Good job. I know it's been a long day, but get to the hospital and talk to the third one, the one who wasn't injured. Find out when we can talk to the other two," Steve said as he rubbed a hand over his face.

"No problem, boss. Danny would do the same for us," Kono said flatly and left Chin and Steve.

"She okay?" Steve asked quietly once they were alone. He had to remind himself sometimes that Kono was new to all this. In a way he was too, but he had seen plenty of action and had the kind of training that enabled him to suppress his emotions much more effectively and concentrate on what had to be done.

"I don't know," Chin answered. "I don't think it's even hit her yet that if she hadn't stayed in the car as Danny asked..." he trailed off.

"We don't know anything yet," Steve began, but was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fireman's uniform.

"Commander McGarrett?" the man asked.

"Yes?"

"I'm Chief Wilson." The two men shook hands. "I spoke to a member of your team earlier."

"Yes, she told me that your men were still working to put out the fire," Steve recalled Kono's report.

"Well, the problem was that the explosion caused a lot of burning material to fly around and that caused several other, smaller fires all over the marina. Even one of the cars parked nearby caught fire. It took us a while to put everything out. But that's not what you're interested in," he added quickly, seeing the expressions on Steve's and Chin's faces.

"This is all very preliminary, but based on what we got from eye-witnesses and the general pattern of the fires, we can confirm that was started by an explosion aboard Elroy Dryden's boat. Now I understand that your people have interviewed the three men closest to the site of the explosion. All I can tell you is that with an explosion of the magnitude as we've seen here, no one aboard that boat could have possibly survived. In fact, that boat is now in fragments all over the marina. There is hardly anything left of it."

"I guess that answers the questions of remains," Steve said darkly. Just for a nano-second, images of fragments of human remains, half-remembered and half-imagined, mixed with memories of Danny. Mentally shooing the thoughts away, Steve turned his full attention to Wilson's answer.

"The tide was outgoing at the time of the explosion and if someone was under deck, any remains would most likely have been washed out to sea. The boat was moored at facing the open ocean after all."

"Chief Wilson! Chief Wilson!" A high-pitched, almost girlish voice called. The three men turned to look and saw a young woman with dark-rimmed glasses running towards them, holding a bag in her right hand.

"What is it, Dr. Nakamura?" Wilson asked.

"CSU just found this," she replied, panting, and handed him the plastic evidence bag.

Wilson wordlessly handed the object to Steve. Inside the evidence bag were the somewhat charred and scratched, but clearly identifiable remnants of a detective's badge. The number was still intact.

"We ran the badge number, and it is Detective Daniel Williams' badge," Dr. Nakamura confirmed upon Steve's questioning look.

"Thank you, doctor." Wilson dismissed the scientist, then turned back to Steve and Chin.

"I'm sorry, commander, I know what it's like to lose a man, but at least now you have something to take to his relatives."

oOo

It was past midnight by the time Steve stood in the entrance hall of Stanley Edwards' sizable mansion, waiting for Danny's ex-wife Rachel. It had taken him considerable exercise of his persuasive powers to talk the maid into letting him in at this hour. When she had finally admitted him, she had given him a disapproving look and told him to wait in the hall while she went to see if Miss Rachel was still awake. Steve, of course, had no intentions of budging from his spot until he'd spoken to Rachel herself, even if he'd had to drag her out of bed himself. Tomorrow would have been Danny's turn to spend the weekend with Grace, so he wanted to give Rachel the news tonight. He did not envy her task of telling Grace that her father was dead. Dead, that was the verdict it was going to come to. Steve had hung around the marina for as long as he'd been able to reasonably delay his departure, partly not relishing having to bring bad news to Danny's family, partly hoping that some clue would turn up that would give cause for hope. But the day had worn on and eventually night had fallen without the CSU teams uncovering anything that pointed towards the mere possibility that Danny might have survived. Splinters of bone and charred tissue remains had been found among the fragments strewn across the marina, but only DNA testing – if they were lucky – would tell.

Kono had called from the hospital several times with updates, but the news wasn't encouraging either. The witnesses had little to add to their original statements. They had seen Danny enter the boat, but had not seen him leave it again before the explosion. Indeed, Steve couldn't help but wonder if Danny hadn't blown up along with the boat, then where was he? Why wouldn't he let them know that he was all right?

Sensing movement nearby, Steve looked up. A woman wrapped in a dressing gown was coming down the winding staircase into the hall.

"Commander McGarrett?" Her clipped British tones surprised Steve. He'd never met Rachel and outside the few, mostly negative, things Danny had mentioned, he realized he knew nothing about her.

"I'm afraid I have to tell you that your ex-husband Danny Williams was...killed in the line of duty earlier today," Steve managed after a pause. For a moment, Rachel stared at him blankly, then she nodded.

"I see," she finally said. Her tone was superficially calm, but there was a faint tremor in her voice still. "I assume one of your people will let me know when I can make arrangements for the funeral?"

Now it was Steve's turn to stare. He caught himself quickly, though. "Yes, yes. Someone will be in contact with you. However, you should know that we have not recovered his body yet." He hadn't meant to go into details, but Rachel's apparent lack of interest puzzled and irritated him. Rachel raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment, compelling Steve to go on.

"We did recover his badge" Steve removed the object from his pocket and held it out to her. "If you'd like to have it..."

"No, you may keep it," Rachel answered levelly. "If that's all for now, it is as you pointed out, quite late, commander."

Thus dismissed, Steve bade farewell and left the mansion. Once outside, he leaned against he car, shaking his head as if to clear it. The whole experience had felt surreal. He had little experience with this part of police work and hence wasn't sure what the average reaction was to hearing that your ex-husband with whom you at least shared custody of a child was dead, but this? Maybe he just needed some time to process it all; it had been a very long day after all and he needed a shower and sleep. He vowed that tomorrow he was going to track down the men who had killed his partner and left a little girl to grow up without a father.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who took the time to give feedback on the previous chapter. I'm autistic and writing realistic emotions is difficult for me, as I often have trouble understanding them in real life, so I especially appreciate that some of you pointed out to me that the team's (and Rachel's) reaction to Danny's death didn't work for them. Based on that feedback, I made some changes to my original version of chapter 3. These changes are unbetaed and while I did my best to fix all typos and grammar mistakes, English is my third language and I'm bound to get some things wrong. That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

oOo

Danny woke to a pounding headache and an overall feeling of disorientation and confusion. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, something important probably, but right now, even trying to remember hurt. In fact, everything, even the mere act of breathing hurt. His whole body felt sore and utterly exhausted and he allowed himself to drift off again, periodically surfacing only to stay awake for seconds before falling asleep again.

An indeterminate time later, Danny woke to hear voices talking softly somewhere within earshot. They belonged to two men who were, as it seemed, arguing about some third party.

"I'm telling you, he is in no condition to give a statement. By all rights he should be in a hospital where he can get proper treatment. I'll need to monitor him throughout the night and..."

At this point the second speaker cut in. "You're not telling me what I want to hear, doc. I need to talk to him, the sooner the better. We don't have time for all this medical song and dance," This voice was vaguely familiar and Danny strained to recall where he'd heard it before.

"With all due respect, Detective Santana, you do not have a medical degree." Of course, Detective Santana! He didn't know Santana well, but he had worked with him and his partner on two cases before and once they'd been part of the same task force.

"Detective Williams?" Danny had lost track of the voices and suddenly found the unfamiliar one talking apparently to him. With a groan, he pried his eyes open. Slowly, two men swam into focus. One of them was Detective Santana, the other an unfamiliar young man, looking more a surfer than a doctor. Not that you could tell on this island.

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but all he managed was a dry croak that launched him into a painful coughing fit. Once the spasms had subsided, he gratefully accepted the glass of water that surfer-doc had procured from somewhere. Only when he'd gulped down half its contents and recovered his breath, he got a chance to look around and take in his surroundings. He was in a small, sparsely furnished bedroom. Cheap hotel had been his first guess, due to the lack of any personal touch, but even cheap hotels usually made some attempt at décor. Here, everything was as plain and generic as it got.

"How are you feeling, Detective?" surfer-doc asked, interrupting his mental examination of the room.

Danny shot the man an incredulous glance. "Well, how do you think I feel? My lungs are on fire, my head feels like a bee hive has taken up residence there and I have no idea what I'm doing in one of HPD's safe houses," Danny answered, fixing Santana with a questioning look as a he said the last part. He didn't like the fact that none of his team was here and the smug expression on the detective's face didn't sit right with Danny at all.

"I was only going to ask whether you were experiencing any nausea or dizziness, anything that would indicate that you are suffering from a concussion," the doctor said huffily, "but apparently you are sufficiently well recovered from your adventure to give Detective Santana here a statement." The young man turned on his heel and left the room, leaving the two detectives alone.

"So," Danny said," what's the story, Santana? What the hell warranted dragging me to a safe house while I was unconscious and, I presume, not cluing in my team?"

"An important case, that's what. The same case that the mighty H5-0 hasn't made a dent in the past two weeks."

That got Danny's attention, despite his headache. "You have a lead on who killed the girls?"

Santana shrugged. "To be fair, it's you who got us that lead. The doc said you hit your head pretty good, so I don't know if you remember, but you went to see Elroy Dryden this afternoon."

The name triggered a flash of memory and in a sudden rush of sound and images, fragments of the past day came back to Danny.

"There was a bomb," he said, dazed from the intensity of the recall. "I jumped, but I didn't think..."

"Exactly. Dryden was blown to bits all over the marina. You washed up on a nearby beach. A couple of tourists camping found you and flagged down a patrol unit nearby. By that time the news of the explosion was all over the island. In the end, we decided to bring you here rather than take you to a hospital. It's better if the bad guys think they got both you and Dryden. Otherwise they might change their plans."

Danny still had questions. "I assume that means you were able to get something off that flash drive I pocketed at Elroy's?"

"Names, dates and places. And tech services are still looking as we speak."

Danny crossed his arms in front of his chest. "But I'm right when I say that you don't have enough evidence to arrest them right now, that's why all the secrecy, the safe house."

The smug expression dropped for a moment from Santana's face, but he quickly recovered. "We have enough to arrest them, but not enough to make a case just yet. That is why we need to catch them in the act. We'll have the opportunity to do just that on Sunday, but you need to stay dead for the plan to work."

Stay dead? Danny was stunned. So, everyone thought he was dead? What about Rachel and Grace? What about his team?

"I can't just pretend to be dead," he protested. "I have a daughter; what about her? She's going to see in the news that her father got blown up! You can't ask me to let that happen. At least send someone round and notify them that I'm all right." Danny briefly considered his team as well. He hated for them to think that he had come to harm, but first he needed to think of his daughter.

"We can't take that risk. What if word gets out? The whole operation will be ruined!"

"That's all you can think of, isn't it? The operation?" Danny retorted angrily.

"Do you honestly want to let this go now? Over sentiment? Four little girls are dead and you are just going to let them get away with it. I thought you were a better man than that, Williams, I really did."

Oh yeah, Santana was a bastard. Trying to play him like that, but then again, the man had a point.

"I want to see exactly what you have. I want to see everything you pulled off that flash drive and everything else you might know. If it really is enough to get these rat bastards, then I'll play it your way. I'll stay dead until we've caught these SOBs. Under one condition. I want your word that you'll inform my ex-wife. Everyone else, tell them the official story if you want, but I want her notified asap."

It cut at his heart to say these words, but his conscience left him no other choice. His team could take care of its own, but these four girls had had no one who'd looked out for them, who'd protected them. It was time that someone did.

"You know I can't..."

"Either you can, or I walk out of here right now," Danny threatened. The threat was largely an empty one, for he doubted he could make it across the room in his present condition. However, after a few moments of terse silence, Santana nodded.

"All right, I'll send one of my officers around to your ex-wife first thing tomorrow."

"Do it tonight. I don't care what time it is," Danny said fiercely.

Santana nodded again and left the room.

Danny sagged back against the headboard, exhausted from the conversation. He took the half-filled glass of water left behind by the doctor earlier and greedily drank its contents, in the hopes of soothing his burning throat. The water helped a little, but he had still nodded off and was startled awake by an object landing in his lap, announcing Santana's return. It was a file.

"This is what CSU's tech services have pulled so far off the flash drive. I trust you'll find it interesting reading," Santana added sarcastically, obviously not dealing well with his recent defeat.

If this was what it was going to be like being cooped up with the man, Danny thought, it was going to be a very long two days until Sunday.

oOo

When Kono walked into the H5-0 offices the early the next morning, she wasn't surprised to see Steve already in his office. She hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night. She had been fine as long as she had been busy at the hospital, but almost as soon as she had come home, the impact of the day had made itself fully felt. The worst thing wasn't just how close she had come to dying herself, but the guilt she felt over having let Danny go alone to talk to his informant. If only she had followed Steve's orders, Danny might still be alive. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the office and knocked on Steve's door.

Steve looked up from his laptop, signaling her to come in.

"Boss, can I talk to you for a minute?" Kono asked, forcefully steadying her voice. What she had to say wouldn't be easy, but after pondering the situation at length and looking at it from every angle, she knew it had to be done.

Steve looked pale and haggard and it was obvious that he had slept little.

"Yes, what it is?" he asked.

"I'm resigning from the task force." Kono had to force to words past her throat which suddenly seemed impossible tight.

When Steve didn't reply, she went on. "I failed to follow orders and because of that Danny is dead. I should have had his back, but I didn't. There is no excuse and no way to fix what I've done, so I think the best thing for me is to resign immediately." She handed Steve an envelope. "Here is my written resignation."

Steve took the envelope, opened it and scanned the enclosed letter. Then he tore it apart, throwing the pieces into the waste paper basket.

"I'm not accepting your resignation," he declared to Kono's shock. "Yes, you should have stuck with Danny as I asked you to, but you had no way of knowing what would happen." Kono opened her mouth to protest, but Steve went on. "If you had gone with him, there is a good chance you would now be dead, too."

"I know that, but maybe I would have seen something, or been able to do something to prevent the explosion from happening in the first place," Kono protested.

"You don't know that," Steve said curtly and with an air of finality in his tone.

He picked up a folder from his desk and handed it to her. "Our new case," he explained. "Peter Cole, a computer security expert who has been missing for two days. The governor wants us to look into it."

Kono stared. "What about the girls, the explosion, Danny..."

"That's no longer our case," Steve told her.

"Then who?" Kono managed, almost struck speechless by surprise.

"Probably the Feds will take our, the governor wouldn't say." Steve's voice was devoid of all emotion.

"You are just going to let them take over our case?" Kono couldn't believe it. "What about finding Danny's killer?"

Steve remain silent and his lack of reply only served to fuel Kono's anger. "I thought he was your friend! Don't you care about finding his killer?"

"That's none of your business," Steve said coldly. "Now, I have work to do and so do you. I want everything you can dig up on Peter Cole. Financials, friends, family, the works."

Kono stared at Steve, aghast at the utter lack of emotion his showed faced with their friend's death, but he had turned his attention back to his laptop. Furious and confused, Kono left Steve's office, closing the door behind her.

oOo

Kono had just gotten off the phone with the fire department, when Chin entered the office. He glanced in the direction of Steve's office, then came over to where Kono was sitting.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

Kono shrugged. "I'll live. Something's wrong with Steve though, I think. It's not so much that he wouldn't accept my resignation from the team, but he's taken on a new case."

"You were going to resign?" Chin asked, eyebrows raised.

Kono waved him off. "That's not important right now. Or do you agree with Steve that why should just leave the case to the Feds?" she asked with no small amount of anger in her voice.

"Steve wants to leave Danny's killer to the Feds? Just like that?"

Kono nodded. "Yes, just like that. It's as if he doesn't even care that Danny's dead!"

"Maybe it's just shock. They were pretty close and Steve's only recently lost his father," Chin considered.

"No. You didn't hear him earlier. Something's wrong." The more she thought about it, the more Kono was sure that something was terribly wrong.

oOo

Steve watched Chin and Kono talk animatedly outside. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could easily guess. He knew only too well how they felt. When he hadn't been able to sleep, he had returned to the office in the early hours of the morning, he had been fully intent doing whatever it took to catch Danny's killer. In fact, he was still determined to do just that, no matter what the governor said, but he knew he couldn't involve his team, not if he wanted them to be safe. Danny's murder had been a warning. He hadn't realized it at the time, not until he had entered his office and found the plain brown envelope on his desk. There had been no note, just a bunch of photographs. They had all been taken during the past two weeks, as the timestamps indicated and showed clearly that they were being watched and had been since the start of the case. There were pictures of them talking to witnesses in the field, but also images taken of them while they were off-duty. The message was clear and just in case he was being dense, there had been an email waiting for him when he'd checked his messages, telling him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't stay away from the case, Danny's death would be just the beginning.

Steve had no intention of letting himself be warned off so easily, but he had already gotten one member of his team killed because he'd underestimated their opponents and he wad determined not to put anyone else in danger. Besides, Governor Jameson had ordered them off the case and it wouldn't hurt if at least part of the team actually followed her orders.

Before Kono's arrival, he had already made several calls. One had been to an old buddy of his from his days in military intelligence, asking him to try and trace the email. Steve didn't expect anything to come off it, as he was clearly dealing with a group of highly organized and highly intelligent criminals. Another call had been to Chief Wilson asking him to forward any results of their investigation directly to him. The firefighter had shown himself reluctant at first, as the governor had apparently made it clear to him that H5-0 was off the case, but eventually, he had agreed to keep Steve in the loop. Steve had also pulled up the security footage from the building that housed the task force to find out how the criminals had gotten access to his office. The footage had shown that it had been one of the cleaning crew who had put the envelope on his desk and he was now waiting to hear back from the person in charge of the maintenance teams to learn exactly who had been on duty the previous night.

His heart wasn't in it, but after he'd done all that he could for the moment, he had reluctantly turned his attention to their new case. Unless he wanted to arouse Chin's and Kono's suspicions, he had to at least pretend to be interested in the fate of the missing computer expert. Besides, he reminded himself, that man had friends and loved ones who cared about him, too.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

oOo

"How are you coming along on Peter Cole's background?" Steve asked as he walked up to Kono and Chin. They had fallen silent as soon as Steve had come out of his office and were now looking at him with barely masked disapproval.

"Missing persons didn't exactly go out of their way on this one," Chin said, indicating the file Steve had given to Kono earlier. "Aside from Cole's girlfriend, they didn't actually interview anyone and her statement is pretty useless."

"I know what's in the file," Steve interrupted. "I want to know what didn't make it into the file."

Fixing Steve with an angry glare, Kono picked up the thread. "There is nothing unusual in Cole's financials. No deposits aside from his regular paycheck and no larger cash withdrawals. He pays his bills on time and hasn't got any debt. Pays off his credit cards every month, too. He is fairly well off, but doesn't have the kind of money that would justify a kidnap for ransom. There has been no activity on any of his credit cards since the night before he was reported missing by his girlfriend Louisa Rayne."

"Okay. What about family and friends?"

"Parents have been dead for over ten years, his closest living relative is a cousin. I spoke to him on the phone and apparently, they haven't spoken since Cole's birthday eight months ago. The cousin didn't even know that Cole had gone missing," Chin reported, his voice carefully neutral. "In her statement to the police, the girlfriend said that Cole had no close friends that she knows of and that the only people he socialized with are his colleagues at Heide Computer Security, but even those he never saw outside of work."

"We need more information," Steve decided. "You two go to Heide Computer Security and find out if anyone there knows anything that could shed some light on Cole's disappearance. I'm going to re-interview the girlfriend and have a look around Cole's apartment."

Kono and Chin nodded, sharing a dark look before turning to leave the office together. Steve returned to his office to check his email but none of the people he'd contacted had gotten back to him yet, so he grabbed the keys to his truck and headed for the parking lot.

oOo

"We can't just go on like nothing happened! Danny's dead and for us it's just business as usual? What kind of friends does that make us?" Kono challenged angrily as soon as she and Chin stepped out of the building.

"I hear you, cuz, but what do you want me to do about it?" Chin replied.

"I want you to act like you care!"

"You know that I care," Chin answered softly. "Danny was a good friend. That's why before coming here, I paid a CSU buddy of mine a visit."

Kono eyed him doubtfully.

"I saved his life at a crime scene once way back when I was still with HPD. He emailed me a copy of the preliminary crime scene report and it turns out that the explosive used in the bomb was military grade Semtex. Few people even have access to that. It's not something you can just cook up in your basement."

"Then all we need to do is find out who had access to it and would want to prevent us from solving the murder of those four girls," Kono concluded, her anger having made way to subdued determination.

"Already way ahead of you, there. My buddy checked crime reports for the last month, and it turns out that a small quantity of Semtex disappeared from a yard the day before yesterday."

Kono nodded. "The day before the explosion."

Chin suddenly took her by the arm. "Come on, I'll fill you in on the rest on the way."

Kono glanced around and spotted Steve coming out the front door of the building. He shot the duo a glance, but said nothing and headed for his truck parked at the other side of the lot.

"Shouldn't we tell him what we know?" Kono whispered.

Chin shrugged. "He might get pretty pissed. After all, he made it pretty clear that we are off the case."

"I don't care," Kono decided. "I think he'd want to know."

She began to run after Steve, calling out to him. "Hey, boss."

Steve who'd just used his remote to unlock the car door turned around. He'd taken no more than two or three steps towards her, when suddenly, his truck exploded. Chin immediately hit the ground and dove for cover behind a parked car, but despite its protection, he could tell by the shock wave that swept over him that the explosion had been a powerful one, intended to kill. Driven by fear for Kono and Steve, he darted out from behind the car and, ignoring the searing heat that he could feel even at the distance and ran toward the spot where Steve's truck had once been.

"Kono! Steve!" he yelled, or at least tried to, his ears were ringing so hard that he could barely hear his own voice, much less any reply. Not that any was likely to be forthcoming. Kono and Steve were both on the ground, neither of them moving.

In a few quick strides, he'd reached the still form of his cousin.

"Kono!" Chin gently shook her by the shoulder, careful not to jar her too much in case she was injured.

To his great relief, she immediately responded to his touch and attempted to sit up. Even as he was helping her, she began talking agitatedly, though Chin was unable to make out what she was saying over the ringing in his ears. Somewhat reassured that Kono was in no immediate danger, Chin left her sitting on the tarmac and went to check on Steve who was face-down and unmoving, his body half-covered by what had been a car door at one point.

Getting no response to a gently shake of Steve's shoulder, Chin checked for a pulse and was relieved when he found a steady, if somewhat fast, beat beneath his fingers. He didn't dare to try and move Steve in any way, not even to get him out of the heat emitted by the flames that were consuming the remnants of his truck. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

oOo

"Well, Mr McGarrett, it appears you are a very lucky man indeed," the ER physician declared after reviewing Steve's X-rays. "No fractures whatsoever, just some deep bruising. We're going to keep you overnight for observation, but barring complications, you should be free to go tomorrow morning."

Steve nodded. He had no intention of letting himself be cooped up in hospital, but he had neither the heart nor the energy to argue with the annoyingly cheerful physician. He could always find a nurse later and ask her for whatever papers he needed to sign in order to leave.

"Your colleagues are quite anxious to talk to you. They can see you now, if you feel up to it that is."

"It's fine," Steve answered tonelessly. Talking to Chin and Kono was the last thing he wanted to do right now when all he really wanted to do was forget the last twenty-four hours had ever happened. However, since that wasn't an option on today's menu, he might as well get it over with. At least the cousins had remained fairly unharmed, no thanks to him though. The car bomb had been planted in his truck. It was obvious that he had been the intended target. If it hadn't been for Kono calling after him, it would probably have gotten him, too.

Dr. Cheerful nodded and left Steve alone in the small cubicle. Steve took a deep breath, wincing when he felt every one of his bruised ribs and tried to steady himself. His hands had started trembling ever since he'd gotten to the hospital and it was starting to get worse. He recognized the signs, having seen them before in the field. It was the shock and adrenaline rush that came from nearly being blown up. The events of the previous day, the short night that had followed and the obvious threat to him and his team didn't exactly help either. It took considerable willpower and all of his experience and training not to let himself be swept away by the emotions that threatened to come to the surface with overwhelming strength. This was neither the time nor do place to give in, he reminded himself. Right now, he needed to keep his team safe and figure out who was behind it all.

Startled by a sound, he looked up to find Chin and Kono suddenly standing next to where he was sitting on an exam table. They both looked somewhat shaken, but still calm and professional. Kono sported a butterfly bandage over a cut on her forehead and looked rather disheveled, but managed a tentative smile as he looked up at her and Chin.

"You okay, boss?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Steve replied almost automatically.

Before he could ask any questions, Chin began to speak. "Good, because that means I can ask what the hell you were thinking, keeping this to yourself?" His voice was calm enough, on the surface at least, but Steve had known him long enough to know that he was furious. What he did not know though was why Chin's anger seemed to be directed at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked lamely when he realized that Chin was waiting for an answer.

Chin whipped out on object from his pocket. It was Steve's cell phone. He handed it to Steve.

The display showed a text message. It read:

_You have been warned. Next time you won't be so lucky._

It was time-stamped 8.36 a.m.. Steve had left the office just before half past eight, so the message had probably arrived within minutes of the explosion. Probably as soon as whoever was watching them had realized that their plan had failed.

"I take it this isn't the first threat you've received," Chin commented after a few moments, breaking the tense silence between them.

"No, it isn't." Steve confirmed. "I got an email this morning that told me to back off the case or else they'd come after us."

The disapproval was plain on Chin's and Kono's faces. Yet they said nothing, prompting Steve to continue.

"There was also an envelope with some photographs, showing that they had us under surveillance the whole time we were investigating the quadruple murder."

"And what? You decided that they weren't serious?" Kono fairly spat as her temper was starting to get the better of her. "Do you not realize that Danny is dead? Or do you just not care?"

She would have gone on, but Chin stopped her with a faint shake of the head.

Kono fell silent and, after visibly collecting herself, she said: "I'm sorry, boss, I know that I was out of line, but I just don't understand how you can move on like nothing happened."

"I'm not," Steve finally said in a quiet voice. "When I got the email, I knew I couldn't let you stay on the case without putting your lives danger. The governor assigned us a new case, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to have you work that investigation, while I followed up leads in Danny's murder."

Steve fairly had to force out the last two words. Rationally he knew that Danny was dead, yet speaking the words seemed wrong in a way that he could neither understand nor put into words.

"Still, you should have told us," Chin said sternly, then his voice softened. "What I don't understand is how they could know that we didn't really back off the case?"

"We?" Steve asked.

"Yes, boss. We thought you were just going to leave it all to the Feds, so Chin made some calls," Kono explained.

Chin nodded. "I managed to get my hands on the crime scene report through an old buddy of mine who works for the crime lab. Turns out the explosive used at the marina was Semtex. It was probably part of a batch that disappeared from a shipping yard the day before yesterday during a break-in. HPD has an eyewitness' description of the two robbers. We were planning to run that description against photos of everyone who was interviewed at the marina and if that got us nowhere, re-interview the witnesses ourselves."

Steve nodded, realizing that he had underestimated both his team's determination and their resourcefulness. Nothing he could do or say would stop them from tracking down Danny's killer. They might have failed Danny before – Steve because he hadn't taken Danny seriously enough and Kono because she'd let him go alone, but Danny had still been a valuable member of their team and a good friend. They would bring his killer to justice, together, with or without the governor's approval.

"You do that, but stay together and watch your backs. I'm going to talk to the bomb squad and see if the bomb's design gives any clue as to who planted it."

"No, you're not, brah," Chin said calmly. "We talked to your doctor and according to him, you're concussed. You're staying right here until the doc says you're good to go." Anticipating Steve's protest, he added, "Governor's orders."

"You talked to Jameson?"

"Yes, she called your phone earlier. Seems like she heard about the explosion and since it happened right in front of our door, naturally she was concerned."

"How much did you tell her?" Steve asked, suppressing a groan.

"Enough for her to insist that you are not to return to work until cleared to do so by a medical professional."

Sensing that it would be futile to argue further, Steve just nodded. The weariness that he'd felt earlier was returning with a vengeance and suddenly, he had to fight just to keep his eyes open.

Chin and Kono seemed to pick up on his exhaustion. "Take care of yourself, boss," Kono said, squeezing his leg.

"We'll keep you posted," Chin added and then they were gone.

Steve finally gave in to his body's demands and allowed his eyes to drift shut.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

oOo

By the time Danny woke up again, bright sunlight was streaming in through the gaps in the blinds covering the small window. He raised his left arm to find out how long he'd been asleep, but found his wristwatch was badly waterlogged and had stopped as a result. Damn salt water, he thought and carefully pushed himself up into a sitting position. Even though his head still ached and he could clearly feel the after-effects of having inhaled salt water every time he drew breath, he was feeling better than he had the previous night.

Now all he needed were a shower, some fresh clothes and a bite to eat and he might almost feel human again. With a sigh, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and, after waiting for the slight dizziness to abate, he slowly got to his feet. His legs were a little wobbly, but held him as he made his way across the room and went in search for the bathroom.

Twenty minutes, a shower and a change of clothes later, Danny indeed felt more like his usual self. As his own clothes were either ruined or at least in dire need of a wash, he'd been forced to make do with what he'd found in a drawer in the bedroom. Neither the tee-shirt nor the sweatpants really fit and he hadn't found any socks, but it would do for the time-being. According to Santana, the take-down was supposed to happen on Sunday. While he had no idea what time it was exactly, by the position of the sun, he estimated that it was sometime Saturday afternoon.

As he made his way down the stairs in search of the kitchen, he couldn't help by wonder what the rest of the team was up to right now. If he knew them at all, they were probably out there, leaving no stone unturned in search of his alleged killer. Once again, he felt a stab of regret at being forced to deceive them in this way, but the knowledge that at least Rachel and Grace knew the truth was some comfort to his troubled conscience. At any rate, it would all be over tomorrow and then there would be plenty of time to explain everything to Steve and the others. He'd barely finished the thought when he stepped into the living room. Two uniformed HPD officers were sitting at the couch table and were playing a card game. One of them looked up and said something to Danny, but the words never registered as Danny stared at the small television set on which a news program was running. The sound had been turned off, but Danny had no trouble recognizing the building behind the reporter as H5-0 headquarters. Two fire engines were parked in front of the building and behind the reporter, there was an area cordoned off with crime scene tape. Spotting the remote on the table, Danny quickly grabbed it and turned up the volume.

"_Coming so close on the heels of the death of H5-0 task force member Detective Daniel Williams, this attempt on the life of task force leader Lt. Commander Steven McGarrett sheds doubt on whether the latest product of Governor Jameson's well known 'though-on-crime' stance can truly deliver." _

The reporter's words concluded the segment and the broadcast switched to an unrelated item on increasing food prices. Danny fixed to two officers in the living room with a glare.

"Do you know anything about this?" he asked.

"No, sir," they replied in unison.

"I need a phone. Is there a phone anywhere?" Danny asked. From what the reporter had said, it sounded like Steve hadn't actually been killed, but that didn't mean he wasn't seriously injured.

"I'm sorry, sir, but Detective Santana gave strict instructions that you are neither to leave nor to use the phone," one of the officers explained.

"And pray, where is Detective Santana?" Danny asked, fairly seething with anger and frustration.

"He's in the field," the other officer replied apologetically.

"Then would you mind calling him for me and asking him how, with all the information he has, these people managed to try and kill a member of my team?"

The officers exchanged an uncertain glance. They appeared somewhat intimidated by Danny's anger, but obviously didn't dare defy their superior's orders.

"I supposed it wouldn't hurt if we made some calls," the younger of them ventured eventually.

"Yes, please do," Danny answered with forced civility as he reminded himself that the two officers weren't responsibly for this mess. They were only doing as they were told. It was Santana that he had the beef with.

oOo

It was late afternoon when Steve finally gave up on trying to sleep. He knew the nurses where only doing their jobs, but he had enough of being woken up every time he managed to drift off and decided he might as well stay awake. It was easier said than done, as lying flat on his back seemed to be the only thing he could do without being assailed by intense dizziness and nausea. Still, he had managed to call Chin for an update on their investigation. What Chin had to report had confirmed what he had suspected all along: the bomb that had blown up his truck was nearly identical to the one which had killed Danny the day before. Not only was the design of both bombs exactly the same, the chemical composition of the explosives used were an exact match. There was no doubt that it had come from the same batch of Semtex. They were however no closer to identifying the bomber, much less the person or persons pulling the strings. The witness description from the shipping yard was too generic to be of any use without suspects with whom to compare it. When he'd called, Chin and Kono had been in the process of going through amateur footage taken at the marina around the time of the explosion in the hopes of spotting something that would aid them in finding Danny's killer. It was a long shot and they all knew it. Still, there was no question of giving up, not when it was one of their own who had been killed. They owed it to Danny and to his family. He might not have been able to prevent Grace from losing her father, but he would go to any lengths to find the person responsible.

When Steve's phone rang, he expected it to be Chin or Kono calling with an update, but an unfamiliar number showed on the display.

He pressed the button to take the call. "Yes?"

"Commander McGarrett? This is Jeffery Hapgood, I'm calling about the message you left with my secretary earlier today. How can I help you?"

Hapgood? For a moment Steve was confused, then he remembered the name as belonging to the owner of the maintenance company that worked their office building.

"Thank you for your call, Mr Hapgood. I was wondering whether you could fax me a list of all your employees who had access to our offices."

"Is this about the bombing this morning?" Hapgood asked anxiously. "I saw it on the news. I can't believe that one of my employees has anything to do with the matter. We run thorough background checks on all potential hires and..."

"For the moment, we don't have anything definite, but the sooner we can rule out your employees the better," Steve interrupted him.

"Of course. I'll have my secretary fax you the list as soon as possible."

Steve proceeded to give the office fax number to Mr Hapgood and then hung up.

oOo

Detective Lance Santana was pleased. Despite the complications engendered by the explosion in front of the H5-0 headquarters, everything was going exactly according to plan. The key players in the trafficking organization were safely under surveillance, believing themselves no doubt secure even while their arrests were imminent. In less than twelve hours, simultaneous search warrants would be executed at a number of residences and businesses all over the island, leaving with any luck no time for any of criminals to warn their confederates. The technicians from the cyber crimes unit had just finished their analysis on the flash drive which had been found on Williams and Santana was about to see the man himself to see if there wasn't anything else he recalled from his encounter with the late Elroy Dryden. Santana unlocked the front door of the safe house and had barely time to close it again behind him, when Danny was suddenly in his face.

"Would you mind telling me how it is possible that these people, against whom you claim to have such an air-tight case, could plant a bomb in Steve McGarrett's car?"

Santana stared at the livid detective, so surprised that for the moment, he dropped the file he'd been carrying under his arm.

"If someone else gets hurt because of your incompetence, I promise you that this will be the last case you ever work!" Danny threatened.

Familiar with the other man's quick temper, Santana recovered his wits and replied: "You are out of line, Williams. This isn't your case anymore."

"I want in on the take-down tomorrow."

"That's out of the question," Santana began, but was cut off by the other detective.

"Either you let me be part of this, or am going to make your life miserable in way you can't even imagine once this is over," Danny declared, gesticulating wildly.

Santana wasn't sure how much of Williams' tirade was temper and how much was an actual threat, but either way, he wasn't impressed. This was his operation and he would be damned if he let it be ruined by a hot-head like Williams. When he told the man as much, Williams opened his mouth, but instead of saying anything, he closed it again and picked up a photograph that had fallen out of the file Santana had dropped.

"When was this taken? Who is that guy in the middle?" he asked, pointing to a man in the picture.

Forgetting about the argument, Santana had a look at the picture Danny had picked up. It was one of the surveillance photos taken by HPD detectives earlier that afternoon while they had been shadowing one of the traffickers.

"Why? Have you seen him before?" Santana questioned eagerly.

"Not him. This guy," Danny replied, pointing to a man at the edge of the picture. "Him I've seen before. I didn't remember it until I saw the photograph, but I'm sure he was in one of the pictures Elroy had in his strongbox."

"What strongbox?" Santana asked.

"The one where he kept the flash drive. I don't recall exactly, but I think there was an envelope with photographs in there as well and I remember looking at a few of them. This guy was in at least two of them that I remember." Danny paused. "Who is he?"

Santana shrugged. "It's not him we were following. The detectives who took this were following Manuel Diaz, the man in the center."

"Did he make contact with the other guy?" Danny asked.

"No, not according to the detectives' report. Diaz was just taking a stroll in the park from what they saw," Santana answered after consulting a document from the file. "It says here that all he did was sit on a bench and read a book for a while, then left again."

"Do you have anymore picture of him in the park?" Danny asked. As much as Santana disliked the other detective, Williams had shown good instincts those few times the two of them had worked together.

Santana pulled the stack of of the file. "Here's everything they took."

Danny shifted through the stack of a dozen or so pictures, examining each one intently.

"There!" he declared after some minutes. "You see that? Diaz arrived without a book, yet later he's reading one?"

Santana examined the pictures himself and saw what Danny meant.

"I bet he got the book from from your mystery man," he commented. "It's a shame we don't have any pictures of him at a better angle. There isn't nearly enough of his face visible to run it through facial recognition."

"I have fairly good recollection of what he looks like."

"Good, I'll get a sketch artist to come out here asap." Santana replied, pulled out his cell phone and started dialing.

oOo

Under different circumstance, Kono might have found Steve's mother-hen behavior amusing, but as things stood, it only reminded of the loss they had all suffered. With Danny dead and Steve in hospital, the office seemed painfully empty and everywhere she looked, there were reminders that things could never go back to the way they were.

Chin was talking to Steve on the phone for what seemed like at least the tenth time that day when the fax machine suddenly sprang to life. Curious as to what it could be, Kono went over and retrieved the fax. It was a simply list of names, without comment. The name on the letterhead read Hapgood Solutions, a company Kono had never heard of. Taking the fax with her, Kono returned to where she and Chin had been working.

"That was quick," Chin commented. "The boss said they would be faxing over the list."

"Who are these people?" Kono asked, indicating the names on the document.

"Maintenance workers who had access to this building," Chin explained. "Steve wants us to run background checks on the lot."

Kono nodded. "How's he doing?"

"He says he's fine, but my guess is he's so dizzy he can't even see straight, much less stand up. If he could, he would be here working on the case, no matter what the Governor says."

"Concussion or not, he may be on to something," Kono commented. She had been scanning the list of names and there was one that she'd heard before. "Look at this. Wasn't a Louisa Rayne the girlfriend of that missing computer expert the governor wanted us to find?"

Chin retrieved a folder from his desk. "You're right. Peter Cole was reported missing by his girlfriend Louisa Rayne. Let's run the name and make sure it's the same woman."

"Already way ahead of you there, cuz." Kono said and after a minute added: "That's strange. I ran her social security number and according to that Louisa Rayne died in 1985."

oOo

It was approaching midnight by the time HPD finally had a name to go with Danny's description.

"His name is Frank Drake and he has several priors for arson. He's currently on parole after serving a sentence for burning down a warehouse near the docks. Apparently he was hired by a business rival of the owner to reduce to competition's inventory," Santana explained after he got off the phone with the precinct.

So their man was a hired gun, Danny thought with his head braced in his hands. He was sore and exhausted, but between the headache and his worry for his teammates, sleep was impossible. As promised, Officer Steiger had made some calls earlier that day and had been able to confirm that no one had been killed in the explosion in front of the H5-0 headquarters. The evening news of a local TV channel had features fairly detailed coverage of the incident. A lot had been speculation, but the report had provided Danny with some additional details. He had learned that bomb had been planted in Steve's car and that Steve had been hospitalized. His condition had been described as not life threatening, but that had done little to allay Danny's fears.

"Interestingly, there was a burglary at the same shipping yard two days ago in which a small quantity of military grade Semtex was stolen. Drake matches a sketch made on the basis of witness statement. We don't know where he is right now, but I have a team sitting on his apartment. In any case, we have a search warrant ready for tomorrow morning," Santana continued, intruding on Danny's sombre thoughts. "Have you remembered anything else?" he then asked.

Danny shook his head and closed the file in front of him. "It's all pretty jumbled up."

It was maddening. Looking through the pictures and descriptions of their various suspects, he had more than once felt a sense of recognition, yet every time he tried to recall more, the details eluded him. It felt like they were there all right, looked up inside his head, yet out of reach of his conscious efforts.

"Maybe you should come along as an observer tomorrow," Santana suddenly suggested much to Danny's surprise. The whole time, the man had seemed determined to keep him away from the case at all cost and now he was inviting his participation?

Santana must have read the disbelief on Danny's features because he added: "Captain Wheeler thinks your presence might be helpful."

"Only if you let my team help, too," Danny demanded.

"That's out of the question. The captain might insist on your presence but he said nothing about the rest of your team," Santana replied, leaving no doubt about his opinion on the subject.

"All right, I'll be there tomorrow," Danny agreed, too tired and in too much pain to argue further. "Now please excuse me, I need to get some sleep."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Apologies for taking so long to get this chapter posted. I had the whole story all written out when I started posting, but what started as a few small changes in response to reader feedback turned into some quite substantial alterations to how the story was originally going to play out. Still, the bulk of the rewrites is now done and I hope to be able to post the remaining chapters over the course of the next few days.

oOo

Bringing Louisa Rayne in had been easy. When Chin and Kono had knocked on her door and explained that they wanted to go over some aspects of her boyfriend's disappearance with her, she hadn't balked, not even when they had insisted the talk take place at headquarters. She had accompanied them willing to the H5-0 offices, all the while keeping up the facade of a concerned girlfriend. At least Chin and Kono assumed that it was a facade. Aside from the fake social security number, they had nothing which could not be explained away as a mere coincidence.

"Yes, I admit that Louisa Rayne is not my real name," the woman in their custody told Chin, just as she had told Kono earlier when the rookie had taken a crack at their suspect.

"But as I said before, I only assumed that name to get away from my ex-boyfriend. After I broke it off with him, he wouldn't leave me alone. He was stalking me. I finally had to move, it got so bad. I knew he'd just find me again if I used my real name."

"Then I'm sure you won't mind telling me your real name and the name of that ex-boyfriend of yours," Chin asked.

"I already told your colleague, but I'll tell you again. My name is Andrea Mulligan and my ex-boyfriend's name is Frank Drake. And before you ask me again, yes, I am working for the cleaning service that does this building, but the last time I've been here was over a week ago.

Kono, who was watching the interrogation on the video feed, sighed. The problem was that what little the woman was telling them appeared to be the truth. The DMV photograph on file for Andrea Mulligan did look a lot like their suspect. Andrea Mulligan had filed several police reports against Frank Drake and had also obtained a restraining order against him about a year ago. That Frank Drake was a convicted felon with priors for arson was interesting and rather suggestive, but that was all it was.

Andrea claimed not to have seen Drake since moving and changing her name. Kono had also confirmation from Mr Hapgood that the woman he'd employed under the name of Louisa Rayne had requested a change in shifts about a week ago and as a consequence had been assigned to a different building. A test for explosives' residue on the woman's hands had come back negative as well and with no prints on the envelope the photos had been in, they had absolutely nothing against to use against her.

Not knowing what else to do, Kono had started pulling all the information she could on Louisa Rayne/Andrea Mulligan, Frank Drake and Peter Cole, in the hopes of discovering something they could use to shatter the calm confidence of the woman in the interrogation room. Having decided to start with their financials based on the assumption that if the woman had indeed left the envelope on Steve's desk, she had probably been hired to do so by someone and that someone had probably paid her for her trouble. At least that was Kono's assumption, but from what she had found so far, it didn't look like it was going to pan out. There were no unusual deposits, so either she had been paid in cash or she had been compensated in some other way. The third possibility, that the woman was innocent had occurred to Kono, but she was unwilling to accept such a huge coincidence just yet.

Kono was about to give up on that particular line of investigation, when her gaze fall on an item in Peter Cole's recent account movements. Since they had already checked into his finances earlier that day with no results, Kono had decided to go further back. About a month before his disappearance, he had made a payment to a Dr. Le. Suddenly, Kono realized how it all connected. A quick internet search confirmed her suspicions and with a smile of grim satisfaction, she headed to the interrogation room.

oOo

Chin was utterly frustrated. They had their first solid lead in Danny's murder and the attempt on Steve's life and yet it felt like they were up against a brick wall. He had tried to bluff, threaten and reason with Andrea Mulligan, and yet she stuck to her story with an air of confidence unlike any Chin had ever seen. She hadn't asked for a lawyer and in fact, appeared completely unperturbed by any of it. He could only hope that Kono had found something that would help them in getting her to talk. Chin had just decided to try and let the woman stew for a while in the hopes to rattle her that way, when the door opened and Kono strode in. She ignored Chin completely and walked up to Andrea.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Kono asked sharply, fixing Andrea with a chilling stare.

"Excuse me?" Andrea asked, appearing not the least bit shaken by the interruption.

"Frank Drake. He doesn't know that you're pregnant. Am I right?"

For the first time, Andrea's confidence wavered, although only for a second. "I'm not pregnant," she finally answered.

"Then I'm sure you won't mind taking a pregnancy test," Kono said with a smile.

"As a matter of fact, I do mind," Andrea answered, but her voice had lost most of its earlier confidence. She was looking distinctly pale now.

"Okay," Kono shrugged. "It really doesn't matter because I'm going to call your ex-boyfriend Frank either way to tell him the good news."

"You...you can't," Andrea stammered. Kono clearly had hit a nerve. Though how she had known Chin had no idea. "I told you, Frank is a dangerous man. He'll kill me if he finds out!"

"Because you're pregnant with another man's child or because you've been spilling your guts to us?" Kono questioned.

"I didn't...I wasn't," Andrea floundered, before recovering her wits. "Frank and I are over. If you have me in here because he did something, you're talking to the wrong person."

"Oh no, Andrea. It's not about what Frank has done, this is about you. Who do you think will be raising your child while you're in jail?"

"Jail? I can't go to jail, I only..."

"You only did what?" Kono asked sharply.

Well played, cuz, Chin thought approvingly.

"I placed two listening devices in your offices. And I left an envelope on a desk, but there were only some photographs inside. I swear that's all I did! You have to believe me!" Andrea sounded as if she was near tears.

Chin and Kono exchanged a stunned look. If their offices had truly been bugged, that would explain how whoever had planted to bomb in Steve's truck had known that they hadn't backed off the case.

"I'll check it out," Chin told Kono in a low voice. She nodded, the turned her attention back to Andrea.

"Who told you to plant those listening devices and leave the envelope?"

"If I tell you, will you protect me?" Andrea asked tearfully.

"That depends on what you have to say," Kono answered coldly. She couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for the woman. After all, what she had done had nearly gotten Steve killed and she was probably working for the very people who had killed Danny.

"It was Frank," Andrea told her. "It was all his idea, I swear. I had no idea what was going to happen."

"What was his idea? What exactly did he have you do?"

"He had me get that job at the cleaning company under a false name. A friend of his makes fake IDs and that's how he got me the papers I needed. Then he told me to get close to this guy Peter Cole, to find out about his habits and all that. It was all going so well, but..."

"You fell in love with Peter," Kono concluded.

Andrea let out a sob and nodded. "When Peter disappeared, I knew Frank had something to do with it. I asked him about it, but he said it would all be okay and that after this weekend, he'd be a rich man and that we'd go to Panama or Tahiti or some other place far away from here."

"What about the restraining order?"

"That was his idea. He said that way no one would ever make the connection between us," Andrea explained between sobs. "It was all his idea, you understand."

"That money he's supposed to get. Did he tell you where it was going to come from?" It was obvious that Frank Drake wasn't the mastermind behind all this, even though he was probably the ones who had planted the bombs.

Andrea shook her head. The door opened and Chin poked his head inside.

"Do you have a moment?"

Without a word, Kono joined Chin outside. Gesturing for her to follow him, Chin lead the way. He only spoke when they had stepped out of the building into the balmy Hawaiian night.

"I found the bugs all right," he explained. "There are two, one in Steve's office, the other in the main room."

"So whoever is behind this, knows everything we know," Kono concluded soberly.

"Not everything. They know that we have brought in Andrea, but they don't know what she's told us. And as long as we don't deactivate the bugs and watch what we say, they're probably going to think that we swallowed her story all right."

"Good thinking," Kono said approvingly. "So what's our next move? Should we go pick up Drake?"

"I think we should wait until we have the full story from Andrea. If she's telling the truth, then Drake is going to hang around until he's been paid."

"Still, maybe we should ask if HPD can spare someone to tail him, just to be safe," Kono considered.

"Good luck with that, cuz. Unless Steve makes that request himself, I doubt they're going to move a finger to help us."

"You're probably right," Kono agreed and checked her watch. It was almost 4 a.m.. She was tired, hungry and her head hurt, but even if she had wanted to, going home at this time of the morning would be fairly pointless. In a few hours, Steve was probably going to be released from hospital and knowing her boss, he would plunge straight back into the case. In fact, she was surprised that they hadn't heard from him in several hours. She'd thought he would be eager for updates no matter what time it was.

"I don't suppose I can persuade you go home for a few hours?" Chin's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"No way, cuz. I'm not going anywhere until we have Danny's killer," Kono replied with more energy than she felt.

"At least take one of these, then," Chin produced a bottle of pills from his pocket. "Should take the edge of the headache."

"How did you...?" Kono began.

"I've known you how long, Kono Kalakaua?" Chin asked with a grin.

"You got a point, there," Kono said and accepted the bottle. She wasn't surprised to find that Chin had somehow managed to fill the prescription she had been given at the ER earlier that day.

oOo

Danny stifled a yawn and tried for what felt like the hundredth time to get comfortable in his chair. He'd barely slept, having spent most of the night poring over every scrap of material HPD had on the case. He had hoped that if he just looked at everything long enough, he would recall what else he'd seen while on Elroy's boat. Ever since he'd had that first flash of insight the previous evening, he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that there was more locked away inside his head, just out of reach of his conscious mind. Though the plan for the take-down was a solid one, as evidenced by the very thorough briefing that had taken place in the early hours of the morning, Danny felt like they were about to make a big mistake by acting on incomplete and wore, potentially unreliable information. The cyber crimes unit had done its best to retrieve the information contained on the flash drive, but they had only been able to retrieve about a third the original data. He would feel better if at least his team were part of the operation, but when he'd brought the issue up after the briefing, Santana's answer had been a firm 'no'. He had claimed to have run the idea by his superiors and said that they'd vetoed it, and while Danny had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right about that, he had no evidence to suggest that the detective was lying for whatever reason. Santana had also refused to let Danny in on the action, ostensibly because he wasn't fully recovered from his injuries – an argument which Danny had tried, but failed to convincingly refute, but he had maintaned his original agreement to let Danny be part of the operation as an observer.

There he was now, sitting in the central security office at Honolulu International Airport, where a veritable cluster of monitors showed security video feed from all over the airport. A small earpiece connected him to the remainder of the task force, who were deployed in strategic position all over the airport, ready to track and apprehend the criminals once they and their human cargo set foot on the island. Everything was going according to plan, yet with every passing minute, Danny's sense of dread and foreboding increased.

Banishing the thought from his mind, Danny glanced back up at the monitors and, assured that the flight carrying the wanted men wouldn't land for another ten minutes, got up from his chair, intent on making his way to the coffee machine in the corner. However, when he pushed back his chair, he didn't see the security officer who'd behind him and promptly collided with the man. Danny began to apologize, but the officer merely mumbled something incomprehensible before hurrying away. For a moment, Danny had an odd sensation of déjà-vu, but it faded before he could glean anything from it. Shrugging to himself, Danny went over to the coffee machine. The pot was empty and it would probably take too long to brew a new one.

Just his luck, Danny thought, and he strolled lazily back to his chair. He was just checking his watch, half-listening to the banter of the security guards when something one of them said suddenly triggered a memory. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. They were talking about coffee. One of them was asking the guard he'd bumped into earlier to make another pot of coffee. And he called him by name – Deakon. That was what triggered the memory. He suddenly remembered being in Elroy's cabin, which must have been shortly before the explosion. He'd been looking through the contents of the strongbox and in there had been a video tape labeled with the name J.P. Deakon. That was where he'd seen the name before. It wasn't such a common name. Could there be some link between this guard and the video tape which in all likelihood had been destroyed in the blast? Danny didn't know.

He'd read through everything they had on these scum bags and nowhere had there been any mention of anyone named Deakon or any inside man at the airport. But still, it was possible. Given the the damage to the flash drive and the cyber crimes unit's limited success in retrieving data from it, there might even be more than one inside man. Danny had to find out, at least if the security guard's initials were J.P., but he couldn't talk in here. Someone might overhear him, ruining the entire operation and putting the girls at risk. He couldn't allow that to happen at any cost.

As casually as possibly, Danny got up and made for the door. The security chief of the airport had been briefed about their operation and knew who he was, but for all the officers in here knew, he was a private security consultant. The story was thin, but it was all they had been able to come up with on short notice, and they'd never thought that anyone would actually question his presence. Not daring to turn his head, Danny slipped through the door and just in case he was being watched on the monitors by an inside man, he made his way towards the restrooms. Almost immediately, he felt like he was being followed and a few moments later, he was sure of it, having spotted his pursuer in a pane of polished metal. It was the guard he'd bumped into earlier. Abandoning all pretense, Danny activated his earpiece, ready to let Santana know that they'd been made, but a painful burst of static was all that came over the line. Damn, Danny thought. They had made the one mistake a cop can never afford to make-they had underestimated their target. These weren't amateurs; no, these were pros and he should have known it. They had managed to slip through the grasp of the H5-0 task force. It had been foolish to think that they would let themselves be taken so easily. The guard probably wasn't the only inside man, but he was most likely the one who'd raised the alarm the moment he'd recognized Danny in the security office and realized that he was alive after all.

Danny quickened his steps as he frantically scanned his surroundings for anything that might help him. He couldn't trust anyone and his movements were most likely being tracked from the security office. Still, he had to get the word out. Chances were that things were going to get real ugly around here real soon and Santana's men would need all the reinforcements they could get. What he needed was a phone. He started reaching for his own, until he remembered that it was on the bottom of the ocean. Still walking briskly, he'd now made his way into the departure's area. Spotting a young woman talking on her mobile phone, he approached her.

"Excuse me, miss? Might I borrow your phone for a moment?" he asked.

She shot him a look that clearly conveyed her refusal and resumed her conversation, turning her back to him and ignoring any further attempts to get her attention. Danny quickly glanced around and spotted his pursuer less than twenty meters away, pretending to browse a newspaper.

The man probably wouldn't dare to do anything overt right here, with dozens of people watching, but it would be easy for him to use his status as a security guard to 'arrest' Danny and drag him off to some secluded location. In an instant, Danny made up his mind. He turned back to the girl, shook her roughly by the shoulder and when she turned around to yell at him, he snatched her phone out of her hand and broke into a run. He could hear her scream, but paid no attention as he ran, dialing Steve's number as fast as he could

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

oOo

"Mr McGarrett? Here is an information leaflet for you. Would you please read it and let me know if you have any questions?" A middle-aged nurse handed Steve a pink leaflet.

"Thank you," Steve accepted the leaflet impatiently and shoved it into his pocket without even glancing at it. "If you don't mind, can we just skip this part? It's not the first time I've had a concussion. I know what to watch out for."

The nurse frowned and, for a moment, it looked she was going to argue but eventually she relented.

"All right. If you would please just sign here, you're free to go." She handed him a clipboard. Steve scanned the standard discharge form, then picked up the pen that had been tied to the clipboard with a piece of string and signed on the dotted line before handing the board back to the nurse. Without waiting another moment, he turned to head down the hallway toward the elevator. His joints felt stiff and every movement hurt on account of the bruises caused by the door of his truck landing on him. They extended all the way down his left side from his ribs to just above the his knee. They had turned a deep, dark blackish-blue during the night and would in all likelihood takes weeks to fully fade, but right now Steve couldn't have cared less. Technically he wasn't even cleared to return to work yet, but nothing was going to stop him from catching Danny's killer, not even the governor's orders.

He'd been forced to turn his cell phone off during the night as the nurse on the night shift had threatened to confiscate it otherwise, so he hadn't had any updates from Chin and Kono for a few hours. He could only hope that they had managed to stay out of trouble.

As soon as he'd entered the elevator and pressed the button that would take him down to the lobby on the ground floor, he switched his phone back on, intent on calling Chin. Before he could hit a single button however, the phone started ringing. For an instant, his mind flashed back to the moment he'd left the governor's office on Friday afternoon. Then too, his phone had rang as soon as he'd switched it on. It had been Kono calling, bringing him the news of Danny's death. The unbidden memory however cleared from his mind as soon as he saw an unfamiliar number on the display. Curious, he pressed the button to accept to call and brought his phone up to his ear.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Steve," a breathless, yet very familiar voice came over the line the very moment the elevator stopped on the ground floor.

"Danny? How...?" Steve managed, his throat suddenly bone-dry. The elevator and everything else around him was completely forgotten as he listened to Danny's next words.

"Can't explain right now, just listen," the words came in a staccato rhythm amidst heaving breathing and a great deal of background noise.

"Contact HPD, tell them.." Danny's words were interrupted by a loud clattering noise, followed by muffled curses. "They made me. They've got...inside man. Deakon...crap." The unmistakable sound of a shot was heard on Danny's end, followed by a cry of pain.

"Where are you?" Steve demanded anxiously. Without waiting for an answer, he broke into a run.

"Airport." Danny's gasped reply reached Steve's ear, followed by the sound of two shots in close succession.

"Tell Grace, Danno..." A mighty crash interrupted Danny's words. A moment later, the line went dead.

Steve swore under his breath, then leapt into action. Crossing the remaining distance to the hospital's main entrance, he stepped outside and dialed the number Danny had called from. Much as he had expected, the call went straight to voice mail. Next, and he had to summon considerable self-control to keep his voice and his temper in check, he called Governor Jameson's home number.

Not bothering with social niceties, he came straight to the point. "Where is Detective Williams?" Steve asked flat out.

"Commander McGarrett, this isn't..." Jameson began, but Steve cut her off.

"I just spoke to him on the phone less than a minute ago. He obviously isn't dead, so where he is?" Steve's voice was calm, not betraying the slightest emotion, even though underneath he was seething with anger and worry.

"Are you sure it was him?" Jameson asked after a pause, sounding absolutely stunned.

"Positive."

"I swear I had no idea. What did he say?"

Steve repeated everything Danny had managed to tell him and added. "It sounded like he was being shot at before he was cut off."

"If he's at the airport, then he's probably working with HPD. Their Captain Wheeler approached me a few hours after the explosion. He said they had been able to identify the four dead girls and had a solid lead on a whole child traffic operation linked to the four murders. They wanted jurisdiction, I gave it to them. There's a big operation in progress right now. The traffickers are scheduled to bring three girls into the country on a flight from Los Angeles this morning. If their operation has indeed been compromised, then there is no telling what could happen. I want you and your time to proceed to the airport immediately. I'll let Captain Wheeler know what you've told me and tell him to extend his full co-operation. You are to assess the situation there and keep me posted."

"Yes, ma'am. Do you know on which flight the girls are coming in?"

"Unfortunately, no. But I'll find out and get back to you. Good luck, commander." She ended the call.

oOo

Danny woke slowly. His first conscious sensations were those of pain. His head felt consumed by white hot agony. The lingering ache in ribs had also been re-ignited and it was some time before he could distinguish any other sensations. Though he was not yet fully awake and conscious memory of the preceding events eluded him, the sense of danger was still present at the forefront at his mind and guided him to remain still for the moment, making no move to draw attention to himself.

Instead, Danny took inventory. He was resting on a hard surface, definitely not a bed. He could hear indistinct voices surrounding him and concentrated on making out what was being said.

The sound he could hear most clearly was that of someone sobbing. It sounded like the sobs of a child and that was almost enough to compel Danny to open his eyes, but with increasing awareness, his memory had also cleared. He'd been on the phone with Steve when he'd tripped, probably over a suitcase or something of the sort, allowing Deakon to catch up with him. Deakon had fired his gun at Danny, and from what he recalled, Deakon must have hit him too. He recalled feeling a searing pain in his left side just beneath the ribcage. He hadn't had the time to do so much as inspect the damage as he had been too busy trying to get his message across to Steve while avoiding a second, potentially fatal, hit. What had happened after that, he wasn't quite so sure of. He'd been pinned down with no way out, or so it had seemed and he remembered telling Steve to tell Grace that he loved her. He'd been convinced that he'd be killed any second, and yet there he was, alive and with a headache as if someone had tried their best to bash his skull in. For all he knew, someone probably had. Although, why they hadn't finished him off, he couldn't figure out. Unless of course, they had figured that he was worth more to them alive which also meant that there was a good chance that he was being held hostage.

Deciding that speculation wasn't going to get him anywhere, Danny pushed the thought from his mind and returned his focus to his hearing. Every bit of information he could gather might help him get out of this – whatever it was - alive. Amongst the broken sobs, he could make out a soft whisper, too low to distinguish the words, but the tones were comforting and soothing. He got the impression that there were quite a few people around wherever he was, but their voices were only a distant mumble. Suddenly, the shrill sound of a phone's ring penetrated the relative silence. The sound made Danny wince as it seemed to drive a spike of pain through his skull. The sobs nearby grew in intensity.

"Just unplug the damn thing if you're not going to answer it," a female voice finally demanded. She sounded more panicked than annoyed.

"It's probably the cops," a resigned male voice declared.

"Of course, it's the cops, stupid fool!" A third voice, angry and vaguely desperate. "We need a plan."

"Forget it, we aren't going to get out of this. We should just give up now while we still can." The resigned guy from earlier spoke, apparently being the voice of reason, at least relatively speaking.

"And spend the rest of our lives in prison! No way, I'm going down for this. You have got to do something," the woman said. "Answer the phone and tell them that we want a car." Someone clearly had been watching too much TV.

"A car's no good. What's going to stop the cops from tracking us all over this damn island? We need a plan," the man repeated his earlier words.

The arguing trio lapsed into silence while the phone continued to ring. Footfalls were approaching Danny's position and suddenly the woman's voice was much closer.

"Linda, stop that stupid crying, for God's sake!"

"My name's not Linda," the girl, who sounded no older than six or seven, replied between sobs.

"What did I tell you about that? Your name is Linda," the woman declared. Then, a slap could be heard and someone screamed, probably the girl. Danny's eyes flew open. His vision took in three young girls, who sat huddled on concrete flooring, and a middle-aged woman who obviously just struck the youngest of the group, a Hispanic girl with short, curly hair.

"And if you don't shut up right now..." the woman threatened.

Danny pushed himself up on his elbows, doing his best to ignore the twinge of his ribs and waves of dizziness and nausea that swept over him as he did so.

"I can keep them calm," he said in his least threatening tone.

The woman whirled around to face him. For a moment, she just stared at him, then recovered from her surprise. "Make sure you do," she replied and hurried from the room. Danny followed her with his eyes out through the door into the interior of a shop. He then looked around. He and the three girls were alone in a small storage room, obviously a back room of the shop beyond. Through the open door, Danny could see the woman and her two armed confederates arguing. He couldn't understand, though, what was being said this time, as now they were keeping their voices down.

His actions had apparently not only surprised the woman, but when he turned back to the girls, he found them too staring at him in a mixture of shock and fear. The little girl had even stopped crying and now that he was getting a closer look at the frightened group, he recognized their faces from the case file he had been reading not too long ago. These were the girls that the traffickers had planned on bringing into the country with false papers. Linda's real name was Maria, he recalled. Her hair had been straight and somewhat longer on the school photograph that had been in the file, but it was clearly the same girl who had vanished from a playground over six months ago. Her parents were in the country illegally, and over two weeks had passed until a neighbour had reported the girl missing. The stories behind the disappearances of the other two girls were similar. They too had not been reported missing until days later, one by her drug-addicted father, the other by an overworked foster mother. By the time the police had started their investigation, the trail had in each case long gone cold. These girls had no reason to trust him, and after what they had probably been through since they'd been kidnapped, they were probably reluctant to trust any adult. Yet he had no choice but to make this work, not only to keep himself alive, but the prevent the girls from coming to any further harm.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

oOo

Lance Santana was not having a good day. One moment, everything had been running smoothly, the next moment the operation had turned into every cop's worst nightmare. The plane carrying the girls and their adult escorts had touched down right on schedule. The passengers had just disembarked, when suddenly their whole communication system had suddenly and inexplicably broken down. Not only was there now nothing by static on all radio channels, but the video feed had cut out as well, leaving them deaf and blind. Technicians had still been scrambling to re-establish communications when they were confronted with an even bigger problem.

Calling Santana on his cell phone, one of the detectives stationed in the arrival's area had urgently requested back-up. Over the noise of people shouting and generally panicking, she had reported that two armed men had suddenly opened fire. That was all she got out before the call was terminated.

That had been twenty minutes ago and although Santana had not thought it possible at the time, things had managed to get even worse. The only upside to the whole mess, as far as he was concerned, was that H5-0 was going to have to sort it out. Although it wasn't quite an appropriate thought for a law enforcement officer to have, it would be rather satisfying to see the oh-so-great Steve McGarrett and his merry band fail. They were the ones always getting the credit, not to mention the headlines, while HPD was left to clean up after them. It was high time they got taken down a peg, although the timing _was_ unfortunate.

Speaking of the devil, Santana thought, as the door to their mobile command center opened and a uniformed officer showed showed in the very people he'd just thought about.

"What's this, Officer Monterrey? The airport is supposed to in lock down! Who...?" Captain Wheeler who had been pacing within the narrow confines of the van housing the command center, barked.

"We're with the governor's task force," McGarrett interrupted. "Are you the man in charge?"

Santana had only seen Steve McGarrett in person once or twice, yet the man's fluid, yet perfecty controlled motions had struck him. Today however, McGarrett seemed to move much more stiffly and carefully.

"Yes, I'm Captain Wheeler," Wheeler introduced himself with visible relief.. "The governor called to say that you'd be taking over. I must admit I'm glad you're here. The situation has taken a most alarming turn."

That was only typical of Wheeler. Santana had heard the man complain about H5-0's high-handed tactics more than once, but when things came down to it, he was only to glad to shift the responsibility.

"What exactly is the situation?"

"It doesn't make much sense, I'm afraid, but from what we have been able to gather based on eyewitness testimony, it all started when Detective Williams left his position at the central security office. We don't know why, maybe because his cover was broken. One woman we interviewed claims that Williams stole her phone while running from an airport security guard, or at least a man dressed like one. He apparently made it to the arrival's hall, when the guard and another man, one Manuel Diaz, suddenly opened fire. As you can imagine, people started panicking as soon as they heard the shots. We are still piecing together what happened next, but for the moment, we're assuming that the girls and their escorts, a couple named Wyler, entered the hall and together with the guard attempted to escape to the parking lot. By that time, one of my detective who had been stationed in the hall had informed us as to what was happening and we had all exits covered in less than two minutes. The hostiles must have realized as much because they proceeded to enter a newsagents shop and barricaded themselves in there, taking an unknown number of people hostage," Wheeler explained the situation. "We tried to make contact with the hostage takers, but they haven't picked up."

"How many casualties so far?"

"Sixteen wounded, most of them in the rush to get out of the building, although five, including one of my detectives suffered bullet wounds. So far we have two confirmed dead: a woman was shot and died before the paramedics could get to her and an elderly man was also found dead, possibly of a heart attack. We still have a number of people missing, who may or may not be among the hostages.

"Any word on Detective Williams?" McGarrett asked.

"I'm afraid we don't know where he is at the moment."

"What about surveillance footage? Is there no recording of what went down?" McGarrett asked with obvious impatience.

"Unfortunately, the whole surveillance system went down about half an hour ago, just before this all started. We haven't been able to bring it back online since. It seems that a virus has infected the network, blocking all our attempts to regain control. We've sent for a computer specialist, but he hasn't arrived yet."

"That seems like an awfully convenient time for the system to go down," the woman from McGarrett's team commented.

"There is one bit of good news. We managed to apprehend Manuel Diaz, one of the shooters. He's been injured..."

"Where is he now?" McGarrett interrupted the captain.

"Outside, being treated by the paramedics. I have two of my people watching him, He won't get away." Wheeler was quick to reassure McGarrett.

"Good. Chin, you're with me. Kono are in charge here. I want background checks on everyone working airport security. Find out if there is a guy named Deakon and if so, get everything you can on him. Also, get SWAT here, just in case. Let me know immediately if they pick up the phone."

oOo

After getting off the phone with the governor, Steve had immediately called Chin to fill him and Kono in the new developments. The cousins had picked him up at the hospital and they'd made it to the airport in near record time. Still, they had been too late to prevent the situation from escalating and all Steve and his team could hope for now was end it before more people were injured or killed. Manuel Diaz was going to help them do just that or so Steve had decided. The more they knew the better, it would help them work out a strategy and give them leverage in any potential negotiation with the hostiles. He wasn't quite sure yet how the information Chin and Kono had unearthed connected to all this. It was quite possible that the disappearance of the computer expert Peter Cole was linked what had happened at the airport today. After all, Andrea Mulligan had begun a relationship with the man on the say-so of Frank Drake, the likely person behind the two explosions.

Steve's ruminations came to an end as the reached the parking lot where the injured where being treated. Handcuffed to the gurney he was lying on and watched by two sombre-faced police officers was a Hispanic man in his late thirties. A paramedic was wrapping the man's upper arm with a bandage. He didn't seem in any imminent danger of dying, not that Steve would really have cared if he were.

Steve stepped up to the paramedic. "Excuse me, I need to talk to this man. Now."

The paramedic shot him an incredulous look. "You can't," he finally answered. "The bullet most likely hit bone. He's going to hospital with us."

"No, he isn't, " Steve said in tone that tolerated no argument. "I'm sure you have plenty of other patients," he added, addressing the paramedic. Then he turned to the HPD officers. "Uncuff him."

"I'm sorry, sir, but we have strict orders..." one of them began. The other however interrupted him. "As you wish." He uncuffed Manuel Diaz, who so far had followed the exchange in silence.

Steve nodded towards Chin and together, they grabbed the man by the arms. Hauling an unwilling prisoner around wasn't going to be a walk in the park with his bruised body hurting the way it did, so he was glad to have Chin there, just in case their prisoner decided to put up a fight. Still, he was glad he had refused the stronger painkiller's offered to him at the hospital. The ibuprofen he'd taken earlier didn't do much for the pain, but it didn't dull his senses either, something he could ill afford right now.

"Ow! You're hurting me. What the hell...? Who are you?" Diaz protested as Steve and Chin dragged him off the gurney.

"The people who are going to make your miserable life even more miserable if you don't tell us everything we want to know," Steve replied cheerily. Danny surely wouldn't approve of what they were about to do, but if it meant saving his partner and the other hostages, Steve was more than willing to endure Danny's complaints about the questionable legality of his tactics. That was if Danny was even still alive. The ominous end to his phone call didn't bode well. If he was lucky, then the bad guys had decided that he was worth more to them alive than dead and had taken him as one of their hostages. This was one point, Steve hoped that Diaz would be able to clear up for them.

"You can't do this! I've got rights, you know!" the criminal yelled and started twisting furiously in their grip. However, he was no match for their combined strength and soon they reached a fairly secluded spot at the far end of the parking lot, shielded from view by a cluster of dumpsters. Steve indicated for Chin to let the man go and shoved him hard against the concrete wall behind them.

"Spill," Steve ordered, pulling out his gun.

"Okay, okay, there's no reason..." Diaz said, but the words were merely intended as a distraction and even while he was talking he suddenly ducked and rammed his fist into Steve's chest. The punch, coming unexpectedly and hitting his already bruised ribs, brought tears to Steve's eyes as he struggled to draw breath. By the time he'd recovered his breath, Chin had already tackled the wily criminal to the ground, holding him securely in a choke-hold.

"You okay, boss?" Chin asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Steve managed after a moment, his voice sounding oddly strangled to his own ears. He pulled himself up straight, doing his best to ignore the twinge in his ribs and joined Chin .

"Now, let's start this again," Steve said, addressing Diaz.

oOo

"Have you checked out the airport security personnel?" Kono asked, after Chin and Steve had departed and she'd made the call to get SWAT to the scene She was well aware of the looks she was getting from the HPD personnel. H5-0 wasn't exactly popular with most of them and it didn't help that she had only recently graduated from the police academy. To her relief however, at least the man in charge, Captain Wheeler, appeared to have no intentions of challenging her authority.

"Airport security let us have copies of their personnel files and we just started running the names before you arrived. So far, we haven't found anything though. Do you really think it was an actual guard who's involved with the traffickers? We sort of assumed that it was merely a disguise."

Kono let the weak excuse pass. Antagonizing the HPD officers wouldn't help anyone, least of all the hostages.

"We have information that one or more of them are working with the traffickers, specifically a man named Deakon," Kono explained.

"Detective Santana?" Wheeler called out to a man leaning against the wall a few yards away.

"Yes, sir?" He joined them, shooting Kono a look that clearly conveyed what he thought of her and of H5-0 in general.

"Did you came across a security guard by the name of Deakon in those files?"

The detective appeared to consider for a moment. "Yes, there was a file on an employee named James Peter Deakon."

"Good, we need that file and everything else you can find on him," Kono said.

"Captain?" The detective looked at Wheeler for confirmation.

"Well, do it!" Wheeler said impatiently.

"I'll have headquarters run the name as a priority," Santana promised.

"Good. In the meantime, I want you to make sure that none of the guards who were on the premises when all this started leave the airport until we've checked them out and gotten statements from everyone. We need to know where each of them was up to the time the airport was evacuated."

"My people are already working on that," Wheeler informed her. "We have also been trying to get a better idea of how many hostages the hostiles have and who they are. Since video surveillance isn't available, all we have to go on are witness statements and you know how unreliable those can be." Wheeler shrugged apologetically.

"What have you found out so far?"

"We have managed to identify two of the hostiles as far – Sandra and Robert Wyler, a married couple from California who was accompanying the three girls on the flight. Neither of the Wylers has records and by all appearances, they are upstanding citizens. They have traveled extensively during the last few years, mostly to Southeast Asia. This is their first trip to Hawaii. We presume the girls are now among the hostages. Six other people who were on the same flight are still unaccounted for, but it is possible that some of them may already have left the airport by the time we sealed off the exits."

Wheeler had hardly finished the sentence when the door opened and Steve and Chin entered. Steve was moving rather more stiffly than before and Chin looked unusually gloomy.

"Boss, are you...?" Kono began having immediately noticed the blood stains on Steve's shirt that hadn't been there before.

"It's not his," Chin answered with a shake of the head that told her not to pursue the matter further. The tension between her cousin and her boss was obvious. Something had happened that, that much was clear. Before Kono could ponder this further, Steve spoke, his voice steady and almost completely devoid of all emotion.

"Captain Wheeler, I need you to send a team of men to this address," he handed Wheeler a slip of paper. "A man by the name of Peter Cole is being held prisoner on the premises. He was abducted by the trafficking organization several days ago and, among other things, he was forced to create the virus that shut down the airport security systems today," Steve explained.

"I'll assemble a team immediately," Wheeler promised.

"Kono, you'll accompany them. If Cole isn't in immediate need of medical treatment, I want you to bring him here as soon as possible. We may need his help in getting the system back up."

While Wheeler have orders to his men, Kono sidled up to her cousin. "Any news on Danny?"

"In a way," Chin replied. "Diaz claims that he knocked Danny out from behind with the butt of his semi-automatic and just left him there, because that's apparently when he got shot by one of the cops on scene. He says he doesn't know what happened to Danny after that."

"If he's lying somewhere unconscious, then HPD would have found him when they evacuated the building, right?"

Chin shrugged. "I suppose so," he replied flatly. "Diaz also said that he was pretty sure that Danny had been hit, but he didn't know exactly where."

Kono nodded. She knew what Chin was implying. Even if Danny hadn't been killed in the initial firefight, his injuries might still prove fatal and the longer their friend went without treatment, the worse it was likely to look for him.

oOo

"My name is Danny, but if you want, you can call my Danno," Danny told the three girls who were still staring at him with a mixture of fear and apprehension. "I'm a police detective and I have been looking for you." He figured that thanks to their inside man, the bad guys already knew he was a cop, so he wasn't risking anything by telling the girls. He hoped it would help earn their trust.

"There is nobody looking for us," Jacqueline answered with a shake of her head, even though there was small current of hope in her resigned and much too grown-up voice.

"How do you know that?" Danny asked.

"Mrs Wyler said so," the youngest piped up and the other two nodded in confirmation.

"Well, it isn't true, I promise. A lot of people have been looking for you and I'm very glad that I finally found you." Danny let that sink in for a while, and watched the children's reactions carefully.

"You're hurt," Jacqueline suddenly said. Danny followed her stare with his eyes and for the first time, he realized that the left side of his shirt was soaked with blood. While it wasn't bleeding profusely, at least not anymore, fresh blood was still slowly seeping through the fabric. He then gingerly felt the back of his head to check on the other most obvious injury. The stick moisture he encountered didn't encourage him. Great, he thought. No wonder the girls were frightened of him with all that blood.

"Did Mrs Wyler hit you?" Maria asked in a whisper. "She hits us too sometimes, you know."

"It's nothing you need to worry about, okay?" Danny reassured them. "I'm going to be all right. I promise." Danny fervently hoped that it was a promise he could keep, for all of their sakes. He had no doubt that Steve, Chin and Kono were working on getting him and the girls out of there this very moment. Still, as much as he wished that they would hurry, he also hoped that Steve wouldn't do anything stupid, what with no one there to talk sense into him.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

oOo

"Here," Kono said and handed the shivering man on the sofa a cup of hot tea. "Drink this, it should help you feel better."

Kono wasn't sure if it wasn't just an old wives' tale that a hot drink helped in cases of shock, but she figured that sweetened tea couldn't hurt. Kono and the HPD officers had managed to take the two kidnappers on the premises completely by surprise and the whole operation had gone down without a single shot fired.

"Thank you," Cole accepted the steaming mug with obvious gratitude. "And thank you so much for getting me out of there. You really got there just in time!"

That much was true. The criminals had been in the process of cleaning up and removing all traces of their presence from the small house at the waterfront, when the team had stormed the property.

"Mr Cole, I understand you have been through a lot in those last few days, but we do need your help."

Cole took a sip from his tea, then nodded. "Yes, of course. I assume you'll need a statement from me?"

Other than a few scrapes and bruises, the computer expert didn't appear to have been physically harmed. Under ordinary circumstances, protocol would dictated that he be checked out by the paramedics anyway, but the this case was far from ordinary and time was off the essence.

"Well, that, too. But right now there is something else, something more urgent that I hope you can help us with."

Cole appeared puzzled, but said nothing.

"The man whose statement led us to you, told us that your kidnappers took you in order to force you to create a computer virus for them."

"So they already deployed it," Cole concluded with quiet resignation. "I was afraid of that. I assume the people behind this are terrorists?"

"Why would you think that?" Kono asked in surprise.

Cole shrugged. "Who else would want to interfere with airport security? Anyway, how is it that I can help you?"

"We were hoping that you would know of a way to regain control of the systems affected by your virus. Lives are at stake, so if you think there is even a chance that you might be able to help..."

"I think I can. The virus does have a vulnerability, a sort of virtual back door that should allow me to shut it down," Cole considered.

"How complicated would that be? Could you walk someone through it?" Kono asked. If they were lucky, maybe Cole could just instruct one of the HPD technicians over the phone.

"I'm afraid it is rather more tricky than that," Cole shook his head.

"Then could you come with me to the airport now? It's vital we get the system back up as soon as possible."

"Anything I can do to help," Cole promised.

"Good, I appreciate your help. There is a car waiting outside, we can leave immediately."

oOo

"That was Kono calling just now," Steve told Chin. "She's on her way with Peter Cole right now. HPD has taken Frank Drake and an unidentified accomplice into custody."

"That's one piece of good news," Chin commented. "What's their ETA?"

"At least another twenty minutes."

Steve started to stretch, trying to ease the stiffness from his neck but the a sharp pain shooting through his ribcage halted his movements. Damn, that SOB Diaz had probably cracked a few ribs when he'd punched Steve in the parking lot. The adrenaline rush triggered by the phone call from Danny and the subsequent events had helped dull the pain from his bruises, but with the prolonged inaction while they were waiting for developments, that was fading fast and it was becoming harder to stay focused on the task at hand.

"Anything new from the witness interviews?" Steve asked in an effort to distract himself. He had spent most of the time since his return from questioning Manuel Diaz trying and failing to establish and a dialogue with the hostiles. As long as they had no contact with the hostiles, there was not even a chance of ending this peacefully.

"We have three people confirmed missing by friends and relatives who had come to pick them up from the airport. HPD has finished combing through the buildings, so it's a pretty safe bet that they're among the hostages. Adding to that the two people working at the newsagents at the time and the three girls, they are holding at least nine hostages including Danny. HPD is still trying to track down all the people who arrived on the same flight as the girls, so there may be even more hostages we don't know about."

"What about Deakon?"

"He's thirty-two, divorced two years ago, no criminal record and has been working for airport security for five years. Before that, he was was working for a security company that mainly works malls and supermarkets, that kind of thing. I'm still waiting to hear from them. His financials show no usual payments or withdrawals."

"So what's he doing with a group as organized as this?"

"I was asking myself the same question, until I spoke to his ex-wife. The reason they divorced was because their daughter claimed that Deakon had molested her. No charges were ever filed, but if he really is a closeted pedophile, then there are any number of way he could have gotten involved with the traffickers."

"So none of the hostage-takers actually are hardened criminals," Steve surmised. While that might work in their favor when it came to negotiations, it also made them more unpredictable. If they started to feel cornered, they might kill the hostages.

"Okay, I'll try calling the shop's phone again," Steve said and scooted his chair back over to the phone they had set up for contacting the hostage-takers. He put one of the pairs of headphones and hit redial. Much to his surprise, the phone was picked up after only three rings.

"You the cops?" A male voice bellowed over the line. Steve gestured for Chin to come over and take the second pair of headphones so he could listen in on the conversation.

"My name is Steve McGarrett," Steve answered calmly. "Who am I speaking to?" His guess was that he was talking to James Peter Deakon. Out of the three hostiles, he profiled as the one most likely to take the lead.

"That's none of your business! I want you to stop calling, you hear me?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I need to know that the people you are holding are doing okay."

"They're fine. But they won't stay that way if you don't stop calling!"

Getting the impression that the man was about to hang up on him, Steve took a gamble.

"James, you don't mind if I call you James, do you?"

When there was no answer, but the call wasn't terminated either, he continued: "You need to start thinking about how you're going to play this, James."

"What do you mean?" James barked, but his voice had lost some of its earlier bite.

"Your decision determines how this is all going to end. If you're smart, no one needs to get hurt."

"If you're so concerned about people not getting hurt, then you better start listening. I don't want to see a single cop out there, you hear me?"

"I hear you. But you need to give me something in return. How about you release the children and in exchange, I'll have my people back off. Would that be okay?"

"No! I'm not letting anyone go! You move your people away or people start dying until you do."

"I don't think you really want to do that, James." Another gamble, but he needed to find a way to get through to James.

"And why the hell wouldn't I?"

"Because you're not a killer. You're just a guy who got in over his head."

"And how is that your business?"

Good, Steve thought. Keep the man talking. As long as he was busy talking, he wasn't killing hostages.

"I just want to find a way for everyone to get out of this all right, but you need to work with me here. I need some sign that you're willing to do that."

There was silence on the other end. Taking that as a good sign for the moment, Steve went on: "How about you let me talk to one of the people you're holding. That way I can get some confirmation that everyone's all right and that you're willing to work with me."

Again there was a pause. Steve heard some muffled shouting, then a quavering female voice came on the line.

"Yes?"

"Listen, I need to know if anyone has been hurt," Steve asked, hoping that what James had said earlier was the truth.

"We...we're okay. Except this one guy, he looked pretty bad, but they took him into the back and..."

Oh great, Steve thought worriedly. Steve didn't know for certain, but he had the bad feeling that that it was Danny she was talking about.

"That's enough!" Steve heard James' voice nearby. "Back there with the others!" Then James came back on the line. "You satisfied?"

"She said someone was hurt. I need..." Steve began but was cut off by James.

"I did my part, now you do yours. I want those cops gone now!" This time, Steve got the feeling that James wouldn't be distracted. Plus, he needed to establish a basis of trust with the criminal, so giving him what he wanted for now might help

"Just stay calm. They'll be leaving any second now," Steve shot a glance at Chin and nodded. Chin put down his headphones and got up to inform Captain Wheeler.

"Okay. They should be gone now," Steve told James. "Now..." he began but got no further James suddenly hung up. Steve stared at the phone for a moment, not having expected this at all. He had had the impression that James was starting to trust him. He had started to hope that he could convince James to surrender or at least get him to release some of the hostages, including Danny or whoever it was who had been injured. He tried to stop himself from going there, but he couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't too late already. If Danny's injuries were severe, Steve might have signed his partner's death warrant by deciding to keep trying to make contact with the hostage-takers instead of having SWAT storm the place right away.

"What happened?" Chin asked.

"He just hung up. I don't know why," Steve explained.

"You think Danny's doing okay?"

Before Steve could answer, the door opened and Kono entered, accompanied by a tall, lanky man who glanced around uncertainly. Despite some bruises and scrapes on the man's face, Steve instantly recognized him as Peter Cole, the computer expert who'd designed the virus that shut the surveillance system inside the airport.

"Mr Cole? I'm Steve McGarrett from the governor's task force," Steve introduced himself.

"Yes, pleased to meet you." The men shook hands.

"I assume my colleague has already explained the situation to you?" Steve asked.

"Yes, she filled me in on the way."

"Good. Do you think you'll be able to get the system up and running again?"

Cole nodded. "There is a hidden back door which should allow me to shut down the virus. I didn't have a chance to test it beforehand, so I can't guarantee that it'll actually work."

Better than nothing, Steve thought. His uneasiness had been mounting ever since the phone call had been terminated so abruptly.

"Well, you have your chance know. We have set up a terminal here that interfaces with the airport security system." Steve pointed out one of the laptops set up inside the van.

"That should do," Peter Cole replied. "Even if it does work, it will take a few minutes as I'll have to reboot the whole system."

"Then you better get to it."

oOo

If there was one thing that Danny had realized over the past hour, it was that they were in this for the long haul. So far, he had has succeeded in keeping the girls reasonably calm. In the storage room, they were fairly well shielded from the eyes of the hostage-takers and he had been able to carry out a discreet survey of the various boxes and crates stored in the small back room. Most of them were filled with magazines and newspapers, but he had also uncovered a case of bottled water as well as a variety of chocolate bars and other candy. That had kept that girls busy enough to allow him to focus most of his attention on the main room. He'd been relieved when Deakon had finally picked up the phone and entered into negotiations with the police. They were slow going, but whoever was on the other end, was doing a good job of handling the volatile security guard. Things had been going well enough for Danny to feel cautiously optimistic, when a sudden and unexpected development had shattered any hopes he had of them all getting out of this in one piece.

Danny was listening to Deakon's half of the conversation when he felt someone tug at his sleeve.

"It's Maria, I think she's sick," whispered Monique, the oldest of the girls. Danny turned around and saw what she meant. Maria's face was red and puffy and she was wheezing as if unable to breathe, a look of pure panic on her face.

"Monique, do you know if Maria has any allergies?" Danny questioned. He might not be a doctor, but an allergic reaction would fit the symptoms.

Monique looked at him blankly.

"Is there anything she can't eat?" Danny rephrased.

Monique shrugged helplessly.

"Maria," Danny said, taking the frightened girl by the shoulders, "Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to get you help, okay? You just keep breathing as best you can, you hear me?" Maria nodded minutely, almost too far gone with panic to take in the words. Danny clambered unsteadily to his feet, determined to get Maria the help she needed. His legs felt like they were made of rubber and every movement caused fresh stabs of pain from his injured side.

The whole room seemed to twist and turn around him, but by supporting himself on the shelf running along the wall, Danny made it to the door. He had barely passed it, however, when Deakon slammed down the receiver in mid conversation and advanced on him.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, aiming the gun at Danny's head.

"Linda's sick, she needs help," Danny stated with forced calm.

"Well, she can't have it. Now, get back in there before I shoot you!"

"She's having a severe allergic reaction. She needs to go to a hospital now and I'm not going to go anywhere until you let her go so that she can get treatment," Danny replied, the dramatic effect of his statement somewhat lost when he swayed precariously, nearly overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness and just barely managing to steady himself by holding onto a nearby shelf.

"Are you deaf? Get back in there or I'll shoot you!"

The phone in the corner starting ringing again. Deakon cursed under his breath, but didn't take his eyes off Danny for a second.

"Then you'll just have to shoot me, I guess. But you know that less than five seconds after you pull the trigger, you'll have SWAT storming this place, and I really don't think that's what you want," Danny said with far more bravado than he felt.

"They wouldn't dare!" Deakon declared, but his voice lacked conviction.

Mrs Wyler slowly approached, having followed the exchange from a small distance away.

"Maybe he's right," she said to her accomplice.

"No, no, no." The man with the gun shook his head vehemently. "He's a cop. He's just trying to trick us!"

"I'm not trying to trick..." Danny started but was cut off by an eruption of noise coming from the back room.

Had Danny been in better form, he might have used the momentary distraction to his advantage and tried to jump the gunman, but as things stood, he could barely keep upright. Before any of them could speak, Maria came staggering from the storage room, hands clutching her throat, her lips already tinted an alarming shade of blue. Danny vaguely registered the gunman raising his weapon, taking aim straight at the stricken girl, his face set determinedly. Acting on instinct and not deliberation, Danny dove straight into the path of the bullet.

oOo

After what had seemed like an eternity, the screen finally came to life. The black and white video feed was grainy and there was no sound, but what Steve saw was enough to make his blood run cold. The camera trained on the cash register showed Deakon with his gun trained on Danny who, judging by the wild motions of his hands, was engaged in some sort of confrontation with the armed man.

Suddenly, both men turned and a second later a small figure staggered into the frame. Deakon, with the face of a man who had made his decision, aimed his gun at the girl. The instant he fired Danny lunged at the girl, tackling her to the ground.

That was all Steve needed to see. His own bruises and aches instantly forgotten, he broke into a run while giving SWAT the green light to intervene.

oOo

Chin, Kono and Steve were only seconds behind SWAT; yet by the time they entered the shop, it was all over, though it had not been peaceful and calls for the paramedics were already echoing around them. Seeing that there was nothing for him to do at the moment, Steve re-holstered his weapon and walked over to where two figures lay motionless on the floor, surrounded by pools of blood. Nearest to the door, a man Steve recognized as Deakon was lying on his back, chest riddled with bullets. Good riddance, was all Steve could think at the sight of the dead man whose face was still set in a scowl. His glance fell on the second body and his heart sank. The build, the blond hair, though now mostly reddened with blood, were achingly familiar. In an instant he was at the fallen man's side, heedless of his own aching ribs and reached to feel for a pulse at the side of Danny's neck. The pale skin under his fingers was cool to the touch and much as he had dreaded, there was nothing to be felt.

Suddenly, he heard a soft moan.

"Danny?" Steve whispered, still shell-shocked, barely daring to hope that he'd been wrong and that Danny was alive after all.

At the same time as he spoke however, he spotted a small arm and leg protruding from underneath Danny's still form. The girl, he realized with a jolt that instantly shook him from his daze. He had almost forgotten about her. His training took over as he swiftly rolled Danny's body over. Half-buried underneath the detective was a small girl, moving feebly.

"I need a medic here, now!" Steve screamed, even as he ran his eyes over the girl's body. There was quite a bit of blood on her, but it was impossible to tell if it was Danny's or her own.

"Over here." Steve waved the arriving medic over and stepped aside to make room. Steve's gaze fell back on Danny's body, now lying face-upward in a pool of his own blood. The right side of his head and half his face were entirely obscured by blood, hiding no doubt a horrific injury. Another paramedic knelt down next to Danny, feeling for a pulse.

"I need help here, guys!" shouted the female paramedic as she bent over Danny, and within seconds medical jargon was being shouted back and forth as a team descended on Danny.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

oOo

"You okay, brah?" Chin's voice and his hand landing on Steve's shoulder were what finally brought Steve out of his stunned daze. Steve tore his eyes from the retreating forms of the paramedics who were rushing his partner to the ambulance parked outside. He would have gone with them, but they had insisted that they'd need all the available space.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

Chin raised an eyebrow but didn't question the veracity of the statement.

"Any word on Danny?" he asked instead.

Steve had no difficulty casting his mind back over the preceding minutes. "He's been shot twice, once in the side and once in the head. Also, he's lost a lot of blood. They're not sure he's going to make it."

Chin nodded, his face grave.

"At least that girl he jumped in front is going to make it," Steve added. "Seems like she had a severe allergic reaction, probably to something she ate or drank."

"That's good," Chin replied, and then after a long pause said: "Why don't you head over to the hospital? Kono and I will finish up here."

"You sure?" It seemed unfair to leave Chin and Kono alone with all the work when they were just as worried about Danny as he was.

"Positive. And by the way, get your ribs checked out while you're there."

Steve opened his mouth to give a dismissive reply but Chin had already disappeared. Suppressing an exhausted sigh, Steve automatically reached a hand into his pocket to fetch his car keys, when he recalled that he no longer had a car. With everything that had gone down, the explosion had temporarily slipped his mind. Well, he'd just have to commandeer a one of the HPD cars, he decided.

oOo

In the end, Steve had had to find a rental to drive to the hospital. HPD was stretched too thin to spare any of their vehicles and he had been too tired to muster the energy to pull rank. The events of the day had worn him out considerably and the worry he felt for Danny wasn't helping in the least. Even if Danny did survive, the bullet he'd taken to the head could and most likely did do terrible damage. While Steve could understand Danny's decision to dive in front of the bullet to save a child, there was something else that Steve couldn't seem to gets past. He had tried to get some additional information from Captain Wheeler earlier about what had happened in the aftermath of the explosion at the marina, but all Wheeler had told him was that it had been Danny who'd given them the necessary information to set up this take-down. It all boiled down to Danny's decision to 'stay dead' after the explosion. Breaking this case must really have meant a lot to Danny, if he had been willing to let everyone, including his daughter believe that he was dead, in order to catch a killer. Steve thought it more than a little odd and he was still mulling over it as he arrived at the hospital.

After fairly bullying a young resident working the ER into telling him that Danny had been still alive when he'd arrived at the hospital and that he'd been taken into surgery shortly after, there was nothing left for Steve to do, except call Rachel and wait. Danny's ex-wife deserved to know the truth, as far as Steve would be able to relate it. He dialed Rachel's number.

Somewhat to his surprise, it was Rachel herself who answered.

"Mrs Edwards? This is Steve McGarrett."

"Commander. If you're calling about the funeral arrangements, I'm still waiting for the police to conclude their investigation. They said that the death certificate couldn't be issued until they finished their report."

"That's not why I'm calling. Danny's alive."

There was silence at the end of the line for a moment. "They found him alive? But how...?" Rachel stammered.

Steve ignored the question. "He's not in great shape. They've taken him to Kings Medical Center. I'm there right now, waiting for news."

"I'll be there as soon as possible," Rachel replied and hung up.

oOo

Steve had been waiting for less than an forty-five minutes when Rachel walked into the waiting area.

"Commander McGarrett?" Steve looked up from the magazine he wasn't reading to see Rachel standing in front of him. She looked somewhat haggard, her hands nervously clutching her handbag.

"Mrs Edwards. How are you and Grace holding up?"

"About as well as can be expected," she replied coolly. "It has been especially hard on Grace," she added in a softer voice. "I haven't told her the news yet. She couldn't go through losing her father twice in less than a week."

"Any news on Danny?" Steve asked.

Rachel nodded. "I just spoke to his doctor. They're worried about him having lost so much blood, but apparently, his chances are pretty good...if he makes it through surgery."

Her words relieved some of the tension that had been weighing down on Steve. Still, there was one more thing they needed to know. "Do they...have they said anything about how much damage the bullet caused?"

Rachel looked at him with a slightly puzzled expression. "I thought you knew. Danny was very lucky: his side was only badly grazed and the second bullet didn't pierce his skull, so there is at least a chance that he'll make a full recovery."

Steve sighed, sagging down in his chair, wincing at the sharp pain from his ribs. It was almost as if the worry and anxiety were the only things that had kept him going and now that they were at least somewhat alleviated, he felt every one of his bruises. Even breathing suddenly seemed to take effort and wave of dizziness washed over him with enough force to nearly make him fall out of his seat.

He must have grayed out for a moment at the point because the next thing he knew, Rachel's hands were on his shoulders and she was shouting at him.

"Commander McGarrett! Steve! Can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"I don't feel so well," Steve managed, his voice sounding oddly distant to himself. The room suddenly appeared to tilt and warp around him and a few seconds later, he hit the floor, unconscious.

oOo

The sounds coalesced into subdued voices and it didn't take Steve long to recognize Chin's and Kono's voices. For while, he content himself with just drifting along beneath the threshold of true wakefulness. Something however was niggling at him from the back of his mind, something that wouldn't let him rest. Every time he was about to drift back into sleep, there it was, this vague feeling that there was something wrong. It was that feeling that eventually drove Steve to try and open his eyes to try and find out what it was that wouldn't let him rest.

It took Steve considerable effort and willpower just to carry out this small movement and when he finally managed, all he could see were blurred shapes. He blinked. Slowly his vision cleared and the instinct shapes turned into the forms of Chin and Kono. Steve turned his head, trying to spot the forth member of his team, but as soon as he did, the memory came back with a vengeance.

"Danny?" he managed, trying to push himself up at the same time.

Kono was on him in a second, pushing him back down into the pillow. "Oh no, boss. You've just come out of surgery, you're not going anywhere."

Kono's words didn't make any sense, but Steve was too preoccupied to give them much thought.

"How's Danny?" Steve asked, not intending to let himself be dissuaded.

"Relax," Chin's face came into view. "He made it through surgery. He's got bad concussion and a hairline skull fracture, but the doctors think he'll recover."

Reassured, Steve allowed his eyes drift shut again.

~Twenty-four hours later~

Shifting uneasily in his wheelchair and balancing a laptop on his knees, Steve was trying to work. He had been camped out in Danny's hospital room most of the evening after charming a nurse into taking him there. The wheelchair was a concession he'd been forced to make, however unwillingly. It was bad enough that he had ended up in hospital in the first place. As it turned out, Diaz had broken not just one, but three ribs when he'd punched Steve in the chest and one of those ribs had punctured his right lung. That combined with the long day he'd had and the lingering concussion had caused him to collapse in the waiting room. It was fortunate he'd been in the hospital at the time.

Even though Chin and Kono had reassured him that Danny still unconscious, much as the doctor's expected, Steve hadn't been able to rest until he'd seen Danny for himself. He had heard what the doctors had said and rationally, he knew that Danny was most likely going to be just fine. Yet the fact that the few times his partner had regained consciousness up to now, he had been disoriented and confused, subsiding again each time after just a few moments of senseless mumblings. Dr. Gleason, the physician in charge of Danny's care didn't seem concerned and had assured him that this was in fact quite normal after the kind of head injury Danny had suffered. Still, it rattled Steve more than he cared to admit and when he heard Danny moaning once again, he mentally braced himself for dealing with a Danny who didn't even seem to register his presence. He watched Danny shift uncomfortably, scrunching his face up in pain before he opened his eyes.

"Danny?" he asked, hoping that this time, he would be more lucid.

"Sush, not so loud. My head hurts," Danny mumbled. His eyes drifted closed again. Thinking that Danny must be unconscious again, Steve turned back to his laptop, only to be startled by Danny's voice a few seconds later.

"It may be cliched, but do you mind telling me what happened?"

Steve shut the laptop and put it aside, trying to gain time before he answered.

"You don't remember?"

"Obviously not, or I wouldn't be asking," Danny replied, which just a touch of his familiar irritation.

"You were shot during a hostage situation," Steve replied carefully, recalling the doctor's warning that some memory loss, especially surrounding the events of the injury was to be expected.

"Take-down gone bad?" Danny asked.

"No. You were one of the hostage actually. You dove in front of a bullet to save one of the other hostages, a little girl."

"Strange, you'd think I'd remember being taken hostage. Everyone else all right?"

"Yes, everyone's fine. You were the only one who was injured," Steve answered automatically.

Danny regarded him dubiously incredulously. "How come you're in a wheelchair and wearing a hospital gown, then? Or is that a fashion trend that I've somehow missed?"

"It's nothing," Steve tried to shrug, but the pain from his injuries caused him to abort the movement half-way through.

"Doesn't look like nothing to me. So, let me guess. You decided to play the hero and got hurt."

"That's not at all it," Steve said, not wanting to talk about it.

"Okay, what's wrong then?"

"Huh?" Steve was taken aback by the question, wondering if Danny was maybe less lucid than he seemed.

"Why do you have aneurysm face?" Danny asked, enunciating every word clearly as if speaking to a small child child.

"I don't have..." Steve started to protest.

"Yes, you do. Now tell me what's wrong before my head explodes from doing too much thinking."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry and I should have trusted your judgment. There I've said. You happy now?" Steve spat, the concern and worry boiling over into irrational anger.

"Not really. While I appreciate the rarity of an apology from the great Steve McGarrett, it doesn't make any sense. It was me who was wrong. I should have told you about the phone call from my informant and I shouldn't have gone in there without back-up. I should have known better than to trust him."

"You mean Dryden?

"Yeah, who else? My memory might be a little shaky, the last thing I recall is Dryden pulling a gun on me..."

Steve didn't hear the rest of what Danny said as his thoughts whirled off into a million directions at once. The doctors had mentioned memory loss as a possible side effect of Danny's head injury, but should he really be unable to remember anything that had happened during the last few days?

He reached for the call button, but Danny snagged his arm.

"What do you think you're doing?" Danny demanded.

"Calling for your doctor," Steve said.

"Wait. Just tell me what's wrong. Is there something I'm not remembering? Did something happen to Grace? Is she okay?" he asked, his voice growing frantic.

"Calm down. Rachel and Grace are fine," Steve said, settling for the white lie to avoid upsetting Danny further. "You went to see Dryden four days ago. We don't know what exactly happened, but there was an explosion." Steve proceeded to narrate the events of the past four days as best he could.

When he'd finished, he looked back up at Danny, who nodded somberly.

"Thanks for filling me in," Danny said tonelessly. "I think you better press that call button." With that Danny closed his eyes and didn't say another word until a nurse arrived who promptly banished Steve back to his own room.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

oOo

It was early evening the day after Steve had been discharged from the hospital in the week following the hostage situation. He was supposed to stay home and rest, but he'd still spent several hours at the office, until Chin and Kono had ganged up on him, telling him to go home before he keeled over. Knowing that this wasn't a battle he could win, Steve had grudgingly agreed and departed, albeit with the intention of continuing with his paperwork at home.

That had been several hours ago and by now, the paperwork lay abandoned while Steve was browsing the web aimlessly. He was still very sore and tired easily. Steve knew from experience that it would take a while for him to bounce back. He was about to doze off when there was a knock at his front door.

When Steve opened the door, he found Chin and Kono standing outside, looking slightly sheepish.

"Coming to check on me?" Steve asked without rancor.

"Not exactly," Kono said hesitantly. "Can we come in for a second?"

"Sure," Steve answered. He stepped aside to allow the cousins to enter, wondering what was going on that was so urgent that they couldn't have told him over the phone. If it was a new case, then they would have called him to the office.

"What's going on?" Steve asked once the trio had stepped into the den. Chin and Kono exchanged a look.

"It's about Danny," Kono finally said. Steve nodded.

"We've just been to see him again and..." Kono floundered for a moment, "He just doesn't seem like himself."

"He's too quiet," Chin added. "Doesn't even wave his hands around or argue with the nurses."

Steve nodded again, unsure what to say. He too had noticed the change in Danny. He had hoped that it would get better once his physical recovery progressed, but instead, Danny seemed to sink deeper into silence and gloom every day.

"Seeing as he's getting discharged tomorrow, we thought maybe he should stay with one of us for the first few days, at least until he gets his feet back under him," Kono suggested. Chin nodded. Obviously they had discussed the issue already.

"He can stay with me," Steve decided. "I doubt he'll be very happy about it, but I think you're right and it really would be for the best." Steve had wanted to keep an eye on Danny, just in case and this sounded like a good plan. The difficulty would only to get Danny to agree to it, especially in the unsociable mood he was in. Still, Grace seemed to have taken a liking to him and maybe if he suggested that the two of them could spend the weekend at his place, Danny would be more amenable to the idea. He would to anything to make his daughter happy. His daughter... Suddenly a thought struck Steve. Of course! That had to be it, why Danny seemed so depressed lately.

"Have you by any chance seen Rachel and Grace at the hospital when you were visiting Danny?"

"No. I haven't seen them once. It's kind of odd actually."

"Neither have I," Chin added. "And one of us has been to see him at least once a day."

"Do you think Rachel is challenging him for visitation again because of what happened?" Kono asked thoughtfully. Steve had no idea how she knew about the first time after the football match, but he had already learned that not much went past Kono.

"I don't know, but it might explain why he's been so depressed this last week," Steve said.

"But wouldn't he tell us if he had problems with his ex-wife? I mean, he told you the first time around," Kono said.

"Not if he thinks she right and he deserves it," Chin put in.

If he hadn't become a cop, Steve was sure Chin would have made an excellent therapist. It made sense and he wondered how he could not have seen it. He remembered that Danny had started acting weird after he'd learned what had happened. After he learned that everyone, including his ex-wife and daughter, had thought he was dead during three long days.

"Kono, you have some contacts at HPD, right?"

"Not nearly as good ones as Danny, but yes, boss, I know some people."

"Good. Find out who was on the protection detail for the safe house where they kept Danny."

"Consider it done, boss," Kono replied. She pulled out her cell phone and started dialing.

"What are you thinking?" Chin asked softly.

"I think there is a lot why don't know about what happened after the explosion at the marina," Steve only replied.

oOo

"Good news, boss," Kono greeted Steve the next morning as he came walking into the office. "I got those names you were asking about," she said and handed him a piece of paper with five names on it.

Steve scanned the list and nodded. "Good job."

"So, what are you going to do?" Kono asked with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

"I think it is high time I had a word with Detective Lance Santana," Steve replied.

oOo

After getting the names from Kono, Steve had turned around and left the office again, heading for the precinct where Santana worked. One of the uniformed officers directed him to the detectives desk at the far end of the bullpen.

"Commander McGarrett, what brings you here today?" Santana greeted him with a malicious grin. "You need someone to show you how real police work is done?" It was obvious that recent events had done little to change his opinion of the 5-0 team.

Steve ignored the bait and came right to the point. "What did you tell Danny Williams at the safe house?"

Santana appeared taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"You see, I happen to know Danny and I know that he would never agree to let his daughter think that he was dead just to break a case. So what did you tell him to make him go along with your plan?" Steve's voice was low and his tone conversational.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Santana replied indignantly, but it wasn't lost on Steve that he appeared uneasy with the topic of conversation.

"I see two possibilities here," Steve continued. "Either you told him that his family was in danger if the bad guys knew he was still alive, but I doubt he would have believed that without seeing some evidence first. The second possibility is that he _didn't_ agree to play it your way and made you promise to tell his ex-wife the truth, which you neglected to do."

Before Steve could go on, Santana broke in to defend himself. "I told him they would be notified, I never said it would happen immediately." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked defiantly at Steve.

Steve considered punching the arrogant SOB in the face right then and there, but thought better of it. Instead, he turned around and toward the exit. There were other ways to get revenge on the detective and it wouldn't hurt to let him stew a bit, wondering exactly what Steve was planning to do with him. Maybe Danny would have some nice ideas. The thought of his partner reminded him to the second part of his task, one which he suspected would not go over quite so easily.

oOo

It felt odd to be wearing proper clothes again, after a week spent in hospital, Danny thought as he slipped the tee-shirt over his head. Satisfied with his progress, Dr. Gleason had agreed to discharge him today. Steve should be coming to pick him up any minute now. Danny had insisted that it wasn't necessary and that he could easily take a cab, but Steve had been firm. After the near constant poking and prodding on the part of nurses and doctors he'd endured during the past week, Danny was looking forward to spending some time alone. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the numerous visits of his team mates, but he needed time to think. He already had tried his best to figure it out, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't figure out what on Earth he'd been thinking, letting his daughter believe that he'd been killed, just to break a case. Yes, the case had gotten to him, but he had thought himself to be a better father than that. A better ex-husband and team mate for that matter, too. It was no wonder that he had seen neither Rachel nor Grace during the week he'd been laid up. In fact, it wouldn't surprise him if Rachel tried to have his visitation rights revoked again, like she had nearly done after the incident at the football game which really hadn't been Danny's fault in any way. More than once, he'd picked up the phone, ready to dial Rachel's number, but each time, he'd thought better of it. He wouldn't know what to say anyway.

Danny checked his watch. Steve should have been here by now. Frowning, he took the overnight bag Steve had brought him from his apartment and headed out into the hallway.

"Detective Williams?" one of the nurses was hurrying towards him. "Your partner left a message at the nurses' station, saying that he was delayed. He asked you to wait for him in the lobby."

Danny thanked her, bade good-bye and headed for the elevator.

oOo

Down in the busy lobby, Danny took a seat near some potted plants and tried to distract himself by watching the people milling around him. He'd been at it for maybe ten minutes when he noticed a couple with a small girl, maybe five or six years old. The parents were busy talking to a man in a white coat, while the girl was staring openly at Danny. She quickly looked away though when she noticed that he'd seen her. Danny watched the girl tug at here mother's hand, whispering something to her. It seemed to have something to do with Danny, as she pointed excitedly in his direction. The girl led the way, as the trio slowly approached Danny who had been watching them with curious fascination as none of these people were familiar to him in the least.

"Detective Williams?" the man asked hesitantly, stopping maybe four feet from where Danny sat.

"Yes, that's me," Danny replied.

"There is no way we could possibly repay you for what you did for us, but we wanted you to know that we'll never forget how you saved our daughter Maria." The man's English was pretty good, yet he spoke with a heavy foreign accent.

"It is such a happy chance that we should meet you here and are able to thank you in person," he continued.

"I'm honored, really I am," Danny replied, when he realized they were waiting for him to say something. "But I only did what anyone would have done in my place."

"Oh no, sir. Maria told us all about what you did," the mother chimed in, with an equally foreign accent. "They would have killed her if it hadn't been for you, so please accept our gratitude."

"I'm afraid we have a plane to catch," the father said after checking his watch. "Good-bye, Detective Williams. And once again, thank you."

"Bye, Danno!" The girl, Maria, waved to him, before turning away and following her parents out.

Danny shook his head. That had been weird. Steve had told him about what he'd done, that he'd apparently stood up to the hostage-takers when one of the little girls had had an allergic reaction and in protecting the girl, had gotten shot. Still, it hadn't seemed quite real up to now. Maybe something good had come from this after all, he thought. Despite his inexcusable actions towards his own daughter, this girl whom he had saved, she was someone's daughter, too. It didn't lift tremendous weight that had been pulling him down ever since he'd learned what had happened, but it did something to brighten his gloomy mood at least a little.

oOo

Steve entered the hospital in high spirits. Everything had gone according to plan. He surveyed the lobby and spotted Danny sitting on a bench near some plants.

"Ready to get out of here, Danno?" Steve asked as he walked up to Danny.

"I suppose so," Danny answered with a shrug. He gathered up his bag and followed Steve outside and to his truck in the parking lot.

Danny climbed into the car after Steve and they began a silent drive across the city.

Danny seemed lost in thought, staring out of the window and only spoke when they neared their destination.

"Wait, what are we doing here? This isn't the way..." Danny trailed off as they turned into the street where step-Stan's mansion was located.

"We're here to pick up Grace. Or did you forget that you have her this weekend?" Steve stopped the car.

"Don't tell me you had the governor lean on step-Stan again," Danny said, accusation in his tone.

"I did nothing of the sort. I only talked to Rachel and once I explained what really happened, she agreed to drop the petition."

"What do you mean, what really happened?" Danny asked, with more interest than he'd displayed all week. "I already know what happened. You told me."

"I didn't know the full story myself back then. I told you what I knew at the time. Turns out that you only agreed to help HPD with their operation if they let Rachel and Grace know that you weren't killed in the explosion. Detective Santana who was in charge of the protection detail at the safe-house promised he'd notify them, but he never did," Steve explained.

"Why?" Danny asked, completely stunned at the revelation. Granted, he didn't particularly like Santana, but he'd never thought that the man would lie so blatantly to a fellow officer.

"I guess he thought it would jeopardize the operation if they knew," Steve answered with a shrug. "Anyway, I explained to Rachel that it wasn't your fault and she had her lawyer drop the matter, as I said."

Danny was silent for a moment, then a grin spread over his face.

"Thanks, Steve. I mean it, really."

"That's what friends are for," Steve replied. "Now go pick up Grace."

Danny climbed out of the car.

"By the way," Steve called after him. "You're both spending the weekend at my place!"

Danny only laughed. It was good to be back.

The End

Author's Note: A big thank you to everyone who made it this far, especially those of you who have taken to time to let me know their thoughts on this story! This story has not only grown considerably in length through alterations made based on constructive criticism, but I also think it has become a better, more enjoyable story because of it.


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